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BY  THE  TRUSTEES  OF   THE 


SS  Meadville  Theological  School 


U         FROM   INCOME  OF  THE   BROOKES-  ,f^;NO 
\  FOR    LIBERAL   CHRISTIANITY^  ,v,  , 


WORKS 


OF 


FREDERIC    HUIDEKOPER. 


VOLUME   I. 

JUDAISM   AT   ROME. 


NEW   YORK: 
DAVID    G.     FRANCIS. 

1887. 


JUDAISM    AT    ROME 


B.C.  76  TO  A.D.  140. 


FREDEEIC    HUIDEKOPER. 


SEVENTH  EDITION. 


NEW   YORK: 
DAVID     G.     FRANCIS. 

1887. 


COPYE'.GHT,   1876. 

By   FREDERIC    HUIDEKOPER. 


John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


PREFACE. 


Many  years  ago  the  writer  of  this  collected  some  ex- 
tracts from  Christian  anticipations  of  Rome's  destruction. 
While  doing  this,  he  noticed  that  similar  views  had  pre- 
vailed among  Jews  and  Eomans.  Investigation  convinced 
him  that  the  former  were  the  originators.  This  implied 
Jewish  influence  on  the  Roman  mind,  which  he  at  first 
underrated,  regarding  it  as  confined  to  moments  of  ex- 
citement and  as  affecting  merely  the  populace.  Only  by 
degrees  did  he  discover  how  continuous  and  powerful  it 
had  been,  and  that  it  was  directly  due  to  the  superiority 
of  Judaism  over  heathenism. 

Debarred  from  night  study,  the  writer  has  pursued  his 
work  amid  daily  avocations  and  interruptions.  He  could 
have  wished  to  rearrange  and  revise  some  portions  of  it 
yet  further ;  but  to  have  attempted  this  might  have 
endangered  publication  under  his  own  supervision,  and 
would  have  precluded  attention  to  other  duties,  and  to 
the  completion  of  another  short  work  which,  if  eyesight 
permit,  he  would  thankfully  finish. 

It  seems  morally  impossible  that  Judaism  and  Greek 
culture,  which  were  driven  out  with  such  difficulty  from 
Italy,  should  have  made  no  impression  upon  Oriental 
nations.     A  remnant  of  Jews  has  been  found  as  far  east- 


IV  PREFACE. 

ward  as  China.  The  moral  precepts  of  Burmah  and  Siam 
savor  of  Judaism. ^  Greeks  held  intercourse  with  India 
long  before  and  after  the  Christian  era.^ 

How  far  the  better  features  of  the  Civil  or  Eoman  Law 
resulted  from  monotheistic  influence  would  be  an  interest- 
ing, and  might  prove  a  copious  question. 

Among  suggestions  which  should  have  been  made  in 
the  work  is  :  —  that  women,  equally  as  men,  of  the  popular 
party  have  l^een  grossly  maligned  by  their  patrician  op- 
ponents, who  too  often  were  in  a  position  to  prevent  safe 
utterance  of  the  truth.  On  two  cases  of  this,  those  of 
Livilla  and  a  granddaughter  of  Tiberius  called  the  younger 
Julia,  remarks  have  been  offered.^  Concerning  the  first 
Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus,  it  may  be  a  fair  question 
whether  her  character  also  has  not  been  blasted  by  party 
policy  or  malignity.^ 

1  Malcom  quotes  "  Five  principal  "  The  king  of  Siam  recently  opened 

and  positive  [Burmese]  laws:  1.  Tiiou  a  new  mint.  .   .  .  The  high  priest  re- 

shalt  not  kill    2.  Thou  shalt  not  steal,  cited  the  five  conitnands.     These  are, 

3.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adiiltery.  '  Do   not  kill  ;  do  not  steal  ;  do  not 

4.  Thou  shalt  not  lie.  5.  Thou  shalt  commit  adultery  ;  do  not  speak  false- 
not  drink  any  intoxicating  liquor."  —  hood  ;  do  not  drink  strong  drink.'  "  — • 
Travels,  8th  edit.  p.  189.  Cp.  Exod.  Evening  Post  (Weekly,  N.  Y.),  Jan- 
20,  13-16  ;  Lev.  10,  9.  uary  10,  1877. 

'^  Arabic  numerals,  whether  obtained  by  Arabs  direct  from  India,  or  at 
second  hand  from  Greeks,  imply  communication  centuries  after  the  Chris- 
tian era  between  India  and  Western  Asia.  Montfaucon  cites  such  nu- 
merals {Palacofjrcqih.  Grccc.  pp.  345,  346)  from  a  Greek  manuscript. 

^  Concerning  Livilla,  see  pp.  529,  530,  538  ;  concernin<T  the  younger 
Julia,  friend  of  Pomponia,  pp.  241,  518.  Julia  Sabina,  daughter  of  the 
patrician  idol  Titus,  was  bitterly  misrepresented  for  friendship  with  her 
un(;le  Domitian.  The  old  nurse  who  at  personal  risk  placed  the  ashes  of 
uncle  and  niece  together  (Sueton.  Dumit.  17)  is,  by  her  actions,  an  un- 
suspicious witness  to  their  mutual  kindness  and  family  affection. 

*  The  aristocracy  were  anxious  to  put  young  Antony  out  of  the  way. 
The  charge  against  him  was  adultery  with  his  cousin  Julia.  Her  father 
(at  that  time  ruled  by  patricians)  credited,  and  the  popular  party  dis- 
credited, the  charge.  The  language  of  Philo  (Embassy,  40)  concerning 
Julia,  half  a  century  Inter,  seems  unaccountable,  if  the  charges  against 


PKEFACE.  V 

On  the  eve  of  going  to  press  I  learn  that  Professor 
Beesly  of  England,  in  the  "  Fortnightly  Eeview  "  for  De- 
cember, 1867,  and  January,  1868,  treats  the  account  of 
Tiberius,  by  Tacitus,  as  "  an  elaborate  libel."  I  have  no 
knowledge  as  to  his  course  of  argument. 

In  a  few  instances  a  brief  quotation  has  been  repeated, 
either  through  inadvertence  or  to  save  readers  the  need 
of  recurring  to  it. 

To  Professors  Gary  of  Meadville,  and  Abbot  of  Cam- 
bridge, my  thanks  are  due  for  kind  offices.  The  latter,  as 
a  labor  of  friendship,  has  read  many  of  the  proof-sheets, 
and  through  his  suggestions  some  errors  and  oversights 
have  been  remedied. 

Meadville,   Pa.,  September  2,  1876. 


In  issuing  this  fifth  edition  of  his  w^ork,  the  author 
would  state  that  his  belief  —  somewhat  cautiously  ex- 
pressed in  its  pages  —  as  to  the  monotheistic  origin  of 
Greek  Culture  has  become  an  undoubting  conviction. 

As  regards  decadence  of  civilization  in  Italy,  he  would 
date  it  from  b.  c.  18,  when  the  friends  of  improvement 
were  driven  from  tlie  Senate,  and  when  that  body  fell 
under  the  control  of  reactionaries.  Thenceforward  civ- 
ilization stood  at  disadvantage ;  the  law-making  power 
was  in  the  hands  of  its  enemies,  the  course  of  society 
was  downwards,  and  though  this  tendency  met  with  an 
occasional  check  from  some  of  tlie  better  emperors,  yet 
within  two  centuries  it  landed  the  community  in  that 
ignorance  and  brutality,  that  barbarism,  which  pervaded 
Italy  under  Marc  Antonine  and  his  son  Commodus.  To 
the  deification  of  Augustus  a  separate  heading  ought  to 

her  found  credence  in  the  con»inunity  where  he  lived.  The  unreserved 
intercourse  of  cousins  may  have  been  seized  upon  as  the  means  of  murder- 
ing one  and  cruelly  injuring  the  other. 


VI  PREFACE. 

have  been  given.  It  was  a  political  stroke  which  greatly- 
aided  reactionaries  (see  p.  7)  in  murdering  the  friends  of 
justice  and  of  improvement. 

As  a  literary  question  the  perversion  of  the  Erythraean 
Verses  by  Virgil  ^  claims  attention  from  teachers  of  Latin. 
Those  verses  —  deposited  by  the  Senate  in  its  archives, 
and  of  which  numerous  copies  circulated  in  the  commu- 
nity —  had  proved  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Patricians.  In 
B.  c.  12  they  collected  and  burned  two  thousand  copies  of 
them  and  of  their  imitations,  forbidding  any  one  under 
death  penalty  ^  to  read  them.  These  verses  originated 
the  view  that  JEneas,  a  "genuine  monotheist,"  founded 
the  Latin  kingdom.  The  ^neid  was  intended  to  trans- 
form the  "  genuine  monotheist,"  the  "  chaste  ^neas,"  into 
a  licentious  pagan,  a  patron  of  prize  fights  and  of  polythe- 
istic customs.  In  Virgil's  day  his  intention  to  parody 
these  verses  must  have  been  obvious.'^ 

Meadville,  Pa.,  November  17,  1882. 


5  See  pages  mentioned  in  Note  A,  footnote  21",  and  compare  Indirect 
Testimony,  p.  82. 

6  See  Ch.  VII.,  notes  65,  67,  68. 

^  Six  ancient  writers  (cited  in  LeMaire's  Virgil,  vol.  7,  pp.  2S2,  323, 
324)  state  that  Virgil  on  his  death-bed  and  in  his  will  ordered  a  de- 
struction of  his  iEneid.  He  had  doubtless  become  ashamed  ot  it,  know- 
ing, as  he  must,  that  it  would  disgust  the  improvement  party,  who,  even 
if  they  distrusted  the  Erythnean  verses,  would  not  sympathize  with  a 
burlesque  upon  moral  teaching.  The  feeling  of  that  pai'ty  was  perhaps 
expressed  by  Caligula  (see  p.  203,  note  55)  in  his  proposal  to  banish 
Virgil's  busts  from  public  libraries.  The  author's  wishes  were  disre- 
garded, and  his  iEneid  was  published. 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

ANCIENT   JUDAISM. 
Section  Paob 

I.  Its  field  for  GRO^VTH 1 

II.    Its  First  Isipediment 2 

III.  The  Roman  Aristocracy  its  Chief  Enemy       ....  5 

IV.  They  oppose  its  Associate,  Greek  Culture        ...  11 
V.    Close  of  Jewish  Influence  in  Europe 14 

CHAPTER   II. 

CAUSES   OP   JEWISH   INFLUENCE. 

I.    Chief  Causes 16 

1.  Jews  recognized  a  Divine  Being  who  took  interest  in  the  Moral 

Education  of  Mankind 17 

Heathen  Deities  were  regarded  as  devoid  of  such  Interest  .  18 

2.  The  Jewish  View  of  Religious  Duties  included  Morality         .  20 
Heathen  Views  did  not 25 

3.  Future  Existence  to  be  hoped  if  God  exercise  Moral  Care  of 

us,  otherwise  not 26 

4.  The  average  Cliaracter  of  Jews  superior  to  that  of  Heathens  27 

II.  Accessories  and  Hindrances 32 

1.  Ceremonial  Law 32 

2.  Offerings  for  the  Temple 33 

3.  Popular  Rights 35 

4.  Relative  Antiquity  of  Monotheism  and  Idolatry        .        .        .35 

5.  Sibylla 36 

6.  Astrologj'  and  Soothsaying 38 

7.  Mechanical  Skill  aided  Jewish  Influence      ....  40 

8.  Absenpe  of  Political  Control  ;  its  Effect  on  Hellenistic  Jews   .  40 

CHAPTER   III. 

JEWISH   INFLUENCE   ORIGINATES   THE   STOICS. 

I.    Greek  Stoics 40 

II.    Roman  Stoics 54 


vm  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

JEWISH   DIVISION   INTO   WEEKS. 

I.   Adopted  by  Heathens 66 

II.    Numbering  and  Nomenclature  of  the  Days        ...  68 

III.    Lord's  Day 70 

CHAPTER  V. 

AFFILIATED  QUESTIONS. 

I.    Public  Games 71 

II.  War 82 

III.  Annexation  and  Disintegration 83 

IV.  Regicide 85 

v.    Slavery 86 

VI.    Expensive  Living 89 

VII.    Suppression  of  Documents 92 

VIII.    Sympathy  of  the  Jewish  with  the  Roman  Aristocracy  96 

IX.    Murder  of  Body-Guards 107 

X.    Two  Senatorial  Usurpations 108 

XL    Herod  Agrippa,  Senior 112 

XII.   Insincerity  of  Patrician  Hobbies 114 

CHAPTER  VI. 
BELIEF  OF  Rome's  impending  destruction. 

I.    As  a  Precedent  of  the  New  Era 116 

II.    Jewish  Expectations 120 

Sib3'lline  Oracles 120 

Second  Book  of  Esdras 130 

III.  Roman  Apprehensions 134 

IV.  Views  of  Jewish  and  Semi-Jewish  Christians        .        .  135 
V.    The  Roman  Emperor  as  Beliar.     Origin  of  the  Concep- 
tion called  Antichrist 137 

CHAPTER  VII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,    B.  C.  76  -  A.  D.  19. 

I.    B.  c.  76.     The   Erythr.ean   Verses    cause    Discussion   of 

Monotheism 141 

II.    B.C.  75-63.   Other  Sibylline  Verses.    King  from  the  East  143 

III.  B.C.  62-50.     Conflict  of   Parties   and   Religious  Ideas. 

Cicero  a  Reactionist 147 

IV.  B.  c.  49.    Romans  throw   away  Idol  Images   during  the 

Passover 151 

V.    B.  c  44.     CiiisAR's  Death.     Cicero  disavows  Heathenism  154 


CONTENTS.  IX 

VI    B.C.  43-31.    Virgil  AND  Horace.    The  Oracle  at  Delphi  156 
VII.    B.C.  30-18.    Patrician  Reaction.    Virgil  burlesques  part 

OF  THE  Krythr,«an  Verses 159 

VIII.    B.  c.  18-a.  D.  2.     Attack    on   Monotheism    and    Popular 

Rights 160 

IX.    Schools  of  Law 170 

X.    a.  D.  2  - 14.    Augustus  recedes  from  ultra-Patricianism  .  175 
XI.   A.  d.  14-18.    Tiberius  Emperor.    Patrician  Steps  towards 

Rebellion 179 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  19- A.  D.  70. 

I.   A.  D.  19,  20.    Patrician  Rebellion.    Conversions  to  Juda- 
ism become  illegal 186 

II.    A.  D.  21-37.    Effects  of  Patrician  Reaction        .        .        .    195 

III.  a.  D.  37-41.    Caligula 199 

1.  His  Character 199 

2.  Order  of  Events  in  his  Reign 205 

3.  The  alleged  Statue  for  the  Jewish  Temple     .        .        .        .215 

IV.  a.  d.  41  -  51.    Claudius.      A   Reign    of    Patricianism    and 

Heathekism 222 

V.  A.  D.  52-54.     Expulsion  of  Jews.    Paul  in  Greece.    Clau- 
dius AS  Belial.     Philip  martyred.     Sunday  instituted  228 
VI.    A.  d.  54-62.    Earlier  Years  of  Nero's  Reign       .        .        .  241 
VII.    A.  D.  63-70.      Fire   at   Rome.     Jewish  War.    Persecution 

of  Christians 242 

CHAPTER   IX. 

apocalypse,  or  book  of  Christ's  second  coming. 

I.  Title  and  Authorship 255 

II.  Date 258 

III.  Divisions  and  Object 259 

IV.  Phraseology  and  Illustrations 260 

V  Outline  of  the  Book 261 

CHAPTER   X. 

chronological  narrative  a.  d.  70-138. 

I.    A.  D.  70-81.    The  Reign  of  Vespasian  a  Coalition.    That 

of  Titus  favors  Reaction 270 

II.    A.  D.  81-96.    Domitian.    Expulsion  of  Monotheism         .  275 

III.  a.  D.  96-98.    Nerva 286 

IV.  Position  about  the  Close  of  the  First  Century    .        .  286 


:  CONTENTS. 

1.  Senatorial  Families 2f6 

2.  Corruption  of  the  Judiciary 287 

3.  Extinction  of  Oracles  discussed  by  Lamprias        .        .        .  287 

4.  Effort  needed  to  keep  up  Belief  in  Omens         .        .        .  290 

5.  Public  Games 291 

6.  Social  Gatherings  and  Suppers 293 

7.  Fashionable  Education  portrayed  in  the  De  Oratoribus        .  295 

8.  Vestal  Virgins 296 

9.  Dio  Chrysostom  sympathizes  with  Monotheism     .        .        .  297 

10.  Plutarch  indirectly  defends  it 305 

11.  Tacitus  maligns  it 310 

12.  Pliny,  as  Tool  of  Treasury  Thieves,  persecutes  it     .        .  312 

13.  Gentile  Monotheists 318 

14.  The  Name  Christian 319 

V.   A.  D.  98-117.    Trajan.    Reaction  and  Persecution     .        .  320 

VI.    A.  D.  117  - 138.    Hadrian.    Jewish  Revolt  ....  325 


CHAPTER   XI. 

EFFECTS   OF   THE   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN. 

I.  Direct  Effects 330 

1.  Gnostics,  or  Anti-Jewish  Christians 331 

2.  Heathen  Names  affixed  to  Jewish  Documents  .        .        .  336 

3.  Gentile  Evidence  substituted  for  Jewish  in  Acts  of  Pilate  .  342 

4.  Embitterment  of  Semi-Jewish  Christians  against  Jews    .  342 
n.    Indirect  Effects 344 

1.  Extravagant  Use  of  the  Old  Testament   .        .        .        .        •  344 

2.  Antitheses  of  Irenoeus •  349 

3.  Jesus  deified  as  subordinate  God  of  the  Old  Testament .  349 

CHAPTER   XII. 

chronological   narrative,    a.  D.  138-180. 

I.    A.D.  138-161.    Antoninus  Pius 3.">9 

II.  A.D.  161-180.     Marcus  Antoninus 360 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

HUMAN   CULTURE. 

I.    Moral,  Literary,  and  Mental 363 

II.  iEsTiiEiic  Culture,  or  Refinement 371 

III.  Industrial  Culture 376 

IV.  Greek  Culture  a  Result  of  Monotheism  ....  882 
V.    The  Dark  Ages    .        .  ' 387 


CONTENTS.  XI 
CHAPTER    XIV. 

MONOTHEISM. 

I.   Its  Origin .388 

1.  Whether  inherent  in  mankind 388 

2.  Or  due  to  Reasoning 390 

3.  Or  to  Revelation 390 

II.   Judaism  a  Preparation  for  Christianity     ....  394 


APPENDIX. 

NOTE   A. 

SIBYLLINE   BOOKS. 

I.    Cum^an  B.C.  461 -B.C.  83;  A  Patrician  Forgery    .        .        .  395 

II.    Verses  from  Eeythr^e.    b.  c.  76 402 

Part  A.  Monotheism  taught.    Heathenism  decried     .        .        .  405 

B.  Mosaic  History  until  tlie  Flood 411 

C.  Man's  History  from  the  Flood  until  the  Rise  of  Idolatry  412 

D.  Predictions,  professedly,  of  History  during  the  Contin- 

uance of  Idolatry 415 

E.  God's  Kingdom 421 

F.  The  Judgment 426 

G.  Conclusion 431 

III.  Sibylline  Compositions,  b.  c.  75  -  a.  d.  200,  were  Jewish    .  434 

IV.  Christian  Compositions  were  later  than  a.  d.  200        .  441 

V.  Additional  Remarks 446 

1.  Origin  of  different  Names  for  Sibylla         ....  446 

2.  Aristocracy   hostile,   Monotheism  and  the   Popular  Party 

friendly,  to  Sibylline  Literature 447 

3.  Sibylline  Literature  confined  at  first  to  Italj'     .        .        .  448 

4.  Its  Teaching  perverted 448 

5.  Christians  in  Second  Century  claim  a  non-Jewish  Origin  for 

Sibylline  Writings 449 

6.  Causes  of  present  Confusion  in  Sibylline  Productions       .  449 

7.  Verses  denouncing  Rome  are  not  earlier  than  b.  c.  63  .        ,  450 

8.  Copies  of  Erythr^an  V^erses  rare  in  A.  D.  400    .        .        .  450 

9.  The  supposed  Writing  on  Leaves 450 

VI.  Patrician  Opposition  Lines 451 

VII.    Quotations  by  Lactantius 453 

VIII.    A  Query  concerning  Bacis 454 

IX.    Hystaspes 459 


XU  CONTENTS. 

NOTE   B. 

MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WORDS. 

I.    Words  used  by  Jews  and  Christians 460 

1.  deoa^^eia 460 

2.  deoae^-qs 462 

3.  deoai^ilv     ..........  464 

4.  eu(xej3eLa 465 

5.  eiyo-e/Sijs 466 

6.  (vaf^elv 467 

7.  acri^eLa,  Sucrtr^/Sfta,  avofxla. 467 

8.  dcre^rjs,  6ucro"e/3^!,  fivo/xos       • 468 

9.  afff^e'LV 469 

10.  ai^nv,  wpoaKVveiv 469 

11.  trejidiJiei'oi,  (pojioufxevo^ 471 

12.  5oDXos 471 

13.  Xaol 472 

II.     TlLHiMS  APPLIED   BY    HEATHENS   TO  JeWS  OK   CHRISTIANS  .  472 

1.  Foreign  Superstition,  or  Foreign  Rites       ....  472 

2.  deeot,  dafpels 473 

3.  y^vos 474 

NOTE    C. 

DELATORES,  —  PROSECUTORS   ON   SHARES 475 

NOTE   D. 

BOOK   OF   ENOCH. 

I.    Its  two  Chief  Objects 482 

II.    The  Judgment 483 

III.  The  Planets 484 

IV.  Punishment  of  Angels 484 

V.    Renovation  of  the  Universe  by  Fire 485 

VI.    Soul  and  Spirit 486 

VII.    Parallelism  of  the  Apocalypse  and  Book  of  Enoch       .  486 

VIII.    Additions  to  Book  of  Enoch 488 

NOTE   E. 

ROMAN   CHRONOLOGY 489 

NOTE    F. 

NERO's   RETURN. 

I.    As  held  by  Romans 491 

II.    As  HELD  BY  Jews 498 

III.    As  HELD  BY  Christians 499 


CONTENTS.  Xm 
NOTE  G. 

TIBERIUS. 

I.    His  Character 504 

II.    His  Retirement  to  Cafke^ 518 

III.  Patrician  Revolt  of  a.  d.  31 522 

IV.  Social  Results  of  the  Rebellion 631 

V.    Tacitus  falsifies  History 634 

NOTE  H. 

EGYPTIAN   WORSHIP  AT   ROME 542 

NOTE  I. 

JEWISH   REVOLT    UNDER   NERO. 

I.    Outline  of  its  Course 545 

II.    Causes  of  the  Revolt 549 

III.  Florus 651 

IV.  Josephus     .        .        .        ,        • 553 

V.   Agrippa  and  Berenice 560 

VI.    The  Christians 560 

NOTE  J. 

TWO   MODERN   WORKS. 

I.    Smith's  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography       .  561 

II.    Gibbon 661 

NOTE   K. 

XENOPHON,   PLATO,   AND   HERACLITUS. 

I.    Xenophon 565 

1.  General  Remarks  on  him  and  Plato 565 

2.  His  Mention  of  a  Creator 565 

3.  His  Mention  of  a  Providence 566 

4.  His  Argument  from  Evidence  of  Design         ....  566 

5.  He  attributes  Judicial  Morality  to  the  Gods      .        .        .  567 
II.    Plato 568 

1.  He  borrows  from  Judaism 568 

2.  His  Order  of  Creation  agrees  with  that  in  Genesis        .        .  568 

3.  He  adopts  both  Narratives  and  burlesques  one  .        .        .  569 

4.  He  uses  Ideas,  or  Language,  similar  to  Jewish,  concerning 

Hills 570 

5.  He  uses  the  Term  "  Lucifer" 570 

6.  His  "  Soul  of  the  World "       .        .         .        .        .        .        .571 

7.  He  calls  the  Deity  Father  (in  the  Sense  of  Originator)      .  571 

8.  His  View  of  Gods  in  their  Judicial  Capacity         .        .        .  571 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

9.  His  View  of  a  Future  Life 572 

10.  His  View  of  the  Origin  of  Motion 573 

11.  His  View  of  the  Ciiaracter  of  Gods 575 

12.  His  Panacea  was  Force 576 

13.  Obscurity  of  his  Language 579 

HL    Hekaclitus,  Preuecessok  of  the  Stoics       ....  580 

NOTE   L. 

TWO    NARRATIVES   IN   GENESIS   I. -XI 581 

NOTE    M. 

LOCALITY  OF  GREEK  CULTURE 587 


INDEXES. 

I.    Quotations  from  Scripture 591 

IL    Citations  from  Ancient  Authors 593 

in.   Words  and  Subjects       . 598 


JUDAISM   AT   ROME. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ANCIENT   JUDAISM. 


§  I.  Its  Field  for  Growth. 

At  the  present  day  the  Jews  exercise  no  perceptible 
religious  influence  on  the  Christian  communities  amid 
which  they  dwell.  Their  religion  has  no  advantage  over 
Christianity,  either  as  regards  its  accordance  with  reason, 
its  adaptation  to  human  wants,  or  the  evidence  on  which 
it  rests.  Not  improbably  the  absence  of  modern  conver- 
sions to  it  has  blinded  prominent  writers  to  its  influence 
on  the  heathens  of  antiquity. 

That  the  Jews  in  Eastern  countries  made  numerous 
converts  to  the  main  points  of  their  faith  is  obvious  from 
the  frequent  mention  of  such  converts  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  from  addresses  or  allusions  to  them,  which  im- 
ply their  existence  as  a  well-recognized  class.^  In  the 
course  of  this  work  it  will  become  evident,  that  in  Syria 
and  portions  of  Asia  Minor,  and  perhaps  even  to  the 
eastward  of  these  countries,  they  had,  at  the  Christian 
era,  largely  displaced  the  ancient  religions.  In  North 
Egypt  they  were  numerous  and  influential,  as  will  appear 
from  events  in  the  year  37  ;  and  their  views  were,  before 
the  Christian  era,  gaining  rapid  foothold  at  Eome.     Mul- 

1  See  note  34  ;  Note  B,  footnotes  43,  44  ;  Ch.  XIII.  note  39  ;  com- 
pare Cli.  IV. 


2  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  L 

titudes  of  Gentiles  must,  without  adopting  Judaism,  have 
adopted  jNIonotheism. 

Wherever  belief  in  a  Moral  Euler  of  the  universe  was 
diffused,  civilization  received  an  impetus.  Belief  in  such 
a  liuler  gave  encouragement  to,  and  sense  of  responsibil- 
ity for,  a  right  use  of  life.  Intellectual  and  social  devel- 
opment became  most  marked  in  those  Gentile  communities 
where  Jewish  influence  was  greatest. 

§  II.    Its  First  InipccUmcnt. 

A  difficulty  experienced  by  modern  missionaries  in 
heathen  lands  ^  evidently  confronted  the   Jews  in  their 

2  "Of  late,  I  have  been  busily  engaged  in  collating  notes  and  quota- 
tions, on  the  proper  word  for  expressing  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing, in  Chinese.  The  weight  of  authority,  i.  e.  most  of  the  most  learned 
missionaries,  have  given  their  influence  in  favor  of  using  Shang-te,  but 
many  others  dislike  the  term  exceedingly,  as  being  the  proper  name  of 
the  chief  Chinese  god  ;  and  when  we  use  it,  the  people  at  once  say,  '  0 
yes,  that 's  our  Shang-te.'  I  have  satisfied  myself  pretty  well  that  Shin 
is  the  proper  word  to  use."  —  Memoirs  of  W.  H.  Lo"wrie,  pp.  366,  367. 

"  Not  long  ago  a  very  respectable  man  came  to  my  liouse  one  Sabbath. 
I  .  .  .  asked  him  if  he  knew  anything  of  Jesus.  He  replied,  he  had 
heard  he  was  the  son  of  '  Yuh  hwang  ta  te,'  the  'Jewelled  Great  Empe- 
ror.' This  is  the  chief  god,  .  .  .  and  he  is  known  indifferently  by  the 
name  above  given,  or  by  that  of  Sliancj-te.  I  never  \ise  the  term  now, 
having  uniformly  found  that  the  people  supposed  I  meant  their  own 
Shang-te."— i^izd,  p.  421. 

"  We  [the  convention]  were  stopped  by  a  question,  .  .  .  '  "VVliat  is  the 
proper  word  for  God  in  Chinese  ? '  Morrison  and  Milne  have  adopted  the 
word  Shin,  which,  according  to  the  best  judgment  which  I  can  foim, 
means  God,  or  Divinity  in  general.  Mr.  Medhurst  for  many  years  used 
the  same  term,  and  even  so  late  as  this  present  year,  1847,  has  laublished 
a  dictionary  in  which  he  says,  '  The  Chinese  themselves,  for  God,  and 
invisible  beings  in  general,  use  Shin.'  But  some  twelve  years  ago  or 
more,  he  began  to  use  Shang-te,  Supreme  ruler,  for  the  true  God,  and  shin 
for  false  god.  Mr.  Gutzlaff  also  did  the  same  ;  and  tliese  two  being  the 
best  and  most  experienced  Chinese  scholars,  had  of  course  great  weight. 
And  most  of  the  missionaries  were  carried  away  by  tlieir  example.  For 
some  years  past,  however,  there  has  been  a  good  deal  said  on  the  subject, 
and  a  strong  disposition  manifested  to  return  to  the  old  way.     Shang-te 


§11.]  ITS   FIRST   IMPEDIMENT.  3 

first  efforts.     The  Greek  and  Latin  languages  contained 
no  term  for  the  One  Supreme  Being.     The  word  "  god  " 

is  objected  to,  first,  as  being  the  distinctive  title  of  the  national  deity  of 
China,  and  hence  something  like  the  Jupiter  of  Rome  ;  and,  second,  it  is 
not  a  generic  term,  and  cannot  be  vised  in  such  passages  as  '  Chemosh 
thy  God,  and  Jehovah  our  God,'  'If  Jehovah  be  God,'  etc.,  'The  un- 
known God,  him  declare  I  unto  you,'  etc.  In  fact  there  are  many  verses 
where  the  point  and  emphasis  rest  on  the  use  of  the  same  generic  word 
all  through,  as  in  John  10,  3ri,  36,  1  Cor.  8,  n,  etc.  Hence  of  late  many 
of  the  missionaries  wish  to  return  to  the  old  word.  .  .  .  Dr.  j\Iedhurst, 
however,  .  .  .  printed  a  book  of  nearly  three  hundred  pages,  in  \A-hich  he 
maintains  that  sliin  never  means  god,  much  less  the  Supreme  God.  This, 
by  the  way,  is  in  opposition  to  three  dictionaries  of  his  own,  published  in 
the  last  ten  years.  .  .  .  We  went  on  with  the  revision  very  well,  till  we 
came  to  Matt.  1,  23,  where  the  word  Theos  occurs.  Dr.  Bridgman  then 
proposed  that  we  use  the  word  Sliin.  Bishop  Boone  seconded  this  ;  and 
it  was  well  known  that  my  views  coincided  with  theirs.  Dr.  Medhurst 
and  Mr.  Stronach  took  decided  ground  for  Sliany-tc ;  and  so  we  have 
■  now  been  discussing  this  question  for  three  weeks,  IMedhurst  and  Boone 
being  chief  speakers.  .  .  .  Bishop  Boone  and  myself  worked  hard  for  a 
week,  and  wrote  out  an  argument  for  Shin,  covering  tweuty-six  folio 
pages.  Dr.  Medhurst  .  .  .  took  our  answer  so  seriously,  that  he  said  he 
must  have  some  weeks  to  prepare  a  reply.  ...  I  greatly  fear  that  the  re- 
sult of  all  will  be,  that  each  side  will  hold  their  own  views,  and  Dr.  Med- 
hurst and  Mr.  Stronach  will  secede.  In  that  case  there  will  be  two 
versions  or  none.  A  large  majority  of  the  missionaries  in  China,  I  be- 
lieve, are  for  Shin.  .  .  .  This  of  itself  is  a  strong  proof  for  Shin,  for  it 
shows  that  even  the  acknowledged  Chinese  scholarship  of  Medhurst  and 
GutzlafF  is  not  able  to  command  assent  for  Shang-te.  But  I  did  not 
mean  to  write  so  much  on  this."  —  Ibid.,  pp.  441,  442. 

"What  word  will  you  use  to  speak  of  God?  ...  If  j'ou  use  the 
name  of  the  highest  divinity  known  to  the  people,  they  will  think 
you  favor  their  own  system  of  religion.  If  you  use  the  abstract  term  of 
God,  they  will  ask,  '  What  God  do  you  mean  ? '  and  perhaps  will  run 
over  the  names  of  half  a  dozen  of  their  principal  gods,  to  see  if  it  be 
not  some  one  of  these  you  intend.  You  say  no  ;  yon  mean  '  the  true 
God.'  Why,  they  never  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  a  false  god  !  They 
will  verj^  willingly  allow  that  your  god  is  a  true  God,  but  they  expect 
equal  toleration  for  their  own  ;  and  you  will  find  it  no  easy  matter  to 
convince  them  that  when  j'-ou  .speak  of  God,  you  mean  only  one." — Ibid., 
pp.  449,  450.  Compare  in  Ch.  XIV.  note  2,  the  difficulties  of  South 
African  missionaiies,  as  nari'ated  by  Moffat. 


4  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  I. 

was  a  common  noun  as  is  our  word  "  man."  If  we  say 
that  man  is  of  limited  capaeity,  or  liable  to  err,  or  mortal, 
the  expression  is  readily  understood  as  meaning  that  hu- 
man nature  is  limited,  or  that  men  are  liable  to  err,  or 
that  all  men  are  mortal.  The  heathen  use  of  the  term 
"god"  was  analogous.  We  say  "Man  proposes,  God  dis- 
poses." By  "  man  "  we  mean  any  mortal.  A  Greek  or  Ro- 
man would  equally  have  understood  the  word  "  god  "  as 
meaning  ANY  divine  being.^  In  order  to  meet  this  diffi- 
culty, the  Jews  were  forced  to  connect  with  the  word  god, 
or  to  substitute  for  it,  adjectives  which  would  partially  at 
least  convey  their  meaning.^ 


^  According  to  Plutarch,  "  Antipater  of  Tarsus,  in  his  work  on  the 
gods,  writes  verbally  as  follows  :  .  .  .  '  We  regard  then  [any]  god  as  a 
being  blessed,  imperishable  and  beneficent  to  men.'  Then,  carrying  out 
each  of  these  ideas,  he  saj'^s  :  '  and  indeed  men  generally  Travres  regard 
THEM  as  imperishable.'" — Plutarch,  De  Stoic.  Bcjiugjiant.  38  ;  02jp.  10, 
340.  Again,  "  That  evil  should  take  place  according  to  the  prior  design 
vpovoiav  of  God  .  .  .  exceeds  every  Invention  of  absurdity ;  for  how 
then  shall  they  be  givers  of  good  rather  than  of  evil  ?  and  how  shall 
evil  any  longer  be  [deemed]  antagonist  to  the  gods  ?" — •  Plutarch,  Adv. 
Stoicos,  14  ;  0^7?^.  10,  307.  Josephus,  in  a  passage  which  illustrates 
the  use  of  language,  though  it  errs  in  ascribing  polytheism  to  Tiberius, 
says:  "Tiberius  .  .  .  prayed  to  his  country's  gods,  .  .  .  trusting  — 
as  more  reliable  than  his  own  opinion  or  wish  —  whatever  should  be  de- 
clared by  [some]  god  concerning  them  [his  grandchildren]." —  Josephus, 
Antiq.  18,  6,  !).  See  like  use  of  the  term  by  Seneca,  quoted  in  Ch.  11. 
note  3.  Com]iare,  on  the  foregoing  subject,  Norton,  Genuineness,  3, 
Note  D,  as  also  article  by  Ezra  Abbot  in  the  Christian  Examiner,  45, 
380  -  400. 

*  The  Jewish  writers  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  term  the  Deity  the 
"Great  God,"  Qebs  M^TaJ,  1,  ">.!  ;  2,  27;  3,  10,  07,  10-2,  104,  24'!,  284, 
207,  300,  400,  .540,  550,  5)7,  .505,  575,  .584,  ,593  ;  4,  0,  25,  102  ;  7,  24  ; 
the  "True  God,"  Qebs  i\7]6iv6i,  Proem,  2,46  (other  editions  84)  ;  the 
"Highest,"  vypKjTos,  Proem,  1,4;  "Sole  Ruler,"  fibvapxos,  3,  11;  the 
"Unborn,"  a.yivTjTO'i,  Proem,  1,  7,  17;  the  "Self-born,"  avroyev-f)^, 
Proem,  1,  17;  the  "Invisible,"  a.6pa.Tos,  Proem,  1,  8,  Book  3,  12; 
"  AU-rulcr,"  TravroKpdTup,  Proem,  1,  8;  "Imperishable,"  dcpdiros,  5,  358; 
"Indestructible,"  dcpOapros,  2,  2S5  ;  the  "Creator,"  KTiarijs,  Proem,  2, 
17,  Book  1,  45;   the   "Forefather,"   yeverrip,   3,  278,   290;    5,  281,   300, 


§m.]  THE   ARISTOCRACY   ITS    CHIEF   ENEMY.  5 

§  III.  The  Aristocracy  its  Chief  Enemy. 

After  Judaism  had  become  a  recognized  force  in  the 
Eoman  community,  and  after  party  lines  had  been  dis- 
tinctly drawn, —  forcing  it  into  a  yet  closer  connection 
with  the  popular  party  than  its  teachings  alone  would  im- 
ply,—  its  trials  were,  as  a  rule,  in  periods  of  aristocratic 
success,  and  its  palmy  periods  in  times  of  aristocratic 
reverses.  Exceptions  to  this  occur.  But  the  excej)tions 
may  have  resulted  from  laws  passed  during  aristocratic 
ascendency,  or  have  been  caused  by  aristocratic  intrigue. 

The  Senate,  before  it  was  remodelled  by  Julius  Ctesar, 
and  again  after  B.  c.  17,  when  monotheism  and  liberal 
political  views  were  expurgated  from  it,  was  the  zealous, 
though  not  always  discreet  or  consistent  advocate  of  the 
established  religion.  The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  The 
established  religion  was  exclusively  under  Senatorial  con- 
trol, and  was  managed  in  the  Senatorial  interest.  The 
popular  party,  whetlier  from  correct  views  of  human 
rights  or  as  a  protest  against  Senatorial  assumption, 
wished  apparently  to  legalize  any  religion  whose  teaching 
or  management  w^as  independent  of  Senatorial  records  or 
action.^  The  hold  which  any  one  of  these  religions  had 
on  the  popular  mind  is  a  different  Cjuestion.  Judaism 
was,  prior  to  Christianity,  the  only  religion  known  at 
Eome  which  appealed  to  moral  sense  and  interested  itself 
with  man's  moral  improvement.  This  was  a  feature  to 
which  its  less  intelligent  or  less  honest  advocates  did  not 
always  give  due  prominence.  They  were  not  competent 
to  appreciate  it.  The  Senate,  without  appreciating  it, 
found  in  the  developed  moral  sense  of  the  community 
their  chief  cause  of  fear. 

40fi  ;  8,  22;  the  "Ineffable,"  or  else  the  "Destitute  of  Oracles," 
d^fcr^aros,  3,  11  ;  " Hira  who  is  God,"  rhv  ebvra  deov,  3,  33  ;  "Guardian 
of  all  things,"  6s  irdvTa  (pvXdaaei,  3,33;  the  "Great  King,"  ^acriXevs 
fieyas,  3,  499,  560. 

Compare  Christian  phraseology  in  Ch.  XI.  in  the  text  prefixed  to  foot- 
notes 45-48. 

5  See  in  Note  H,  foot-note  2,  the  legalization  of  the  Egyptian  religion 
in  B.  c.  58,  the  year  of  Cicero's  banishment. 


6  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  I. 

How  early  the  struggle  began  cannot  certainly  be 
determined.  The  Jewish  teaching  imposed  in  B.  c.  76 
upon  the  Senate  implies  either  that  the  Senate  did  not 
know  the  nature  of  what  it  was  obtaining,  or  that  public 
attention  had  not  previously  been  called  to  the  dispute 
with  Judaism.  The  former  of  these  is  the  more  probable 
supposition.  Senatorial  merriment  in  B.  c.  63  over  a 
Jewish  expectation,  and  Cicero's  complaint  in  B.  c.  59 
of  Jewish  influence  on  Eoman  assemblies,  imply  tliat 
party  lines  were  then  already  drawn. 

Not  long  before  the  accession  to  power  of  the  popular 
party  vmder  Julius  Caesar,  while  the  conflict  was  still 
tierce  and  the  patricians  conhdent  of  success,  we  find 
Cicero  advocating  that  no  one  should  be  permitted  the 
exercise  of  any  religion  either  publicly  or  privately, 
except  what  had  been  established  by  the  Senate.^ 

When  Csesar  attained  to  power,  we  find  a  procession 
annually  of  Eoman  dignitaries  on  the  first  day  of  the 
passover,  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  away  idol  images, 
and  at  his  funeral  Jews  were  cons])icuous. 

When  the  aristocracy  again  obtained  control,  in  B.  c.  30, 
by  the  victory  over  Antony,  they  were  hampered  by 
members  of  the  popular  party,  some  of  them  doubtless 
monotheists,  whom  Julius  Caesar  had  introduced  into  the 
Senate.  ^  Some  of  these  were  at  once,  by  threats  or  other- 
wise, eliminated,"  and  in  b.  c.  18  or  17,  by  a  preconcerted 
plot,  of  which  an  account  will  hereafter  be  given,  nearly 
all  the  advocates  of  monotheism  and  of  popular  rights 
were  violently  ejected. 

In  A.  D.  19  this  reactionary  Senate,  during  a  fierce  con- 

^  Cicero'.s  work,  Dc  Legibiis,  was  commenced,  according  to  Smith's 
Dictionary,  daring  or  after  B.  c.  52.  Not  impossibly  Caesar's  accession 
to  power  rendered  its  completion  inadvisable  or  useless.  In  it  he  takes 
the  gi-ound  :  "  Let  no  one  have  gods  separately,  nor  let  men  in  private 
worshi]!  new  gods  or  foreign  ones  unless  [such  as  have  been]  publicly  in- 
troduced. Let  them  have  in  cities  the  shrines  constructed  by  The 
Fathers."  Cicero,  De  Leg.  2,  8.  The  proposition,  though  borrowed 
from  Plato,  represents  probably  the  influences  by  which  Plato  and 
Cicero  were  .surrounded. 

T  Dio  Cass.  52,  42. 


§ni,]  THE   ARISTOCRACY  ITS   CHIEF   ENEMY.  7 

flict  against  Tiberius  and  the  popular  party,  undertook  to 
put  Cicero's  suggestion  in  practice.  They  drove  the 
Jews  out  of  Eonie,  prohiloited  under  severe  penalties  any 
adherence  to  Jewish  teaching,  and  searched  houses  for  its 
converts. 

From  this  date  forward  no  Gentile,  wdiile  residing  at 
Eome,  could  legally  profess  Judaism.  This  gave  the 
aristocracy  an  advantage  in  all  subsequent  political 
struggles.  Charges  of  do-tySeta,  impiety  or  Unbelief,  be- 
came a  favorite  weapon  in  their  hands.  Some  uncertainty 
is  created  touching  the  evidence  for  this  by  their  partially 
successful  effort  to  represent  piety  as  an  obligation,  not 
to  the  gods,  but  to  the  state.^  Yet  there  can  be  no  question 
that  Unbelief  in  the  heathen  deities,  or  lack  of  respect 
towards  them,  was  a  frequent  ground  of  criminal  prosecu- 
tion against  members  of  the  popular  party.  Charges  of 
Unbelief  or  impiety  towards  an  individual  god  originated 
in  the  year  14,  when  the  Senate  deified  Augustus.^  Tiberius 
promptly  remonstrated  that  the  deification  of  his  adoptive 
father  ought  not  to  become  a  means  of  destruction  to 
Eoman  citizens  ;  that  offences  against  the  gods  should  be 
left  to  their  own  cognizance. -^^ 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  v.  4,  and  Note  B,  §  ii.  2. 

®  "Tiberius  disregarded  [charges  of]  disrespect  towards  any  one  and 
Unbelief  in  regard  to  any  one  [deity  ?],  for  already  [a.  d.  14]  such, 
behavior  was  called  Unbelief,  and  many  were  brought  to  trial  upon  this 
charge."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  o. 

1"  The  deification  of  Augustus  by  the  Senate  was  an  act  of  political 
hostility  to  Tiberius  and  to  the  popular  party.  Tacitus,  who  constantly 
misrepresents  him  as  endorsing  it,  must  have  slightly  altered  his  phrase- 
ology in  the  following.  Tiberius  "  wrote  to  the  consuls,  that  heaven  had 
not  been  [should  qot  have  been  ?]  decreed  to  his  father,  in  order  that 
the  honor  might  be  perverted  to  the  destruction  of  Roman  citizens, 
.  .  .  that  injuries  to  the  gods  should  be  left  to  the  care  of  the  gods." 
—  Tac.  An.  1,73. 

As  a  sample  of  these  accusations,  it  was  charged  against  Falanius  (Tac. 
An.  1,  73)  that  when  selling  his  gardens  he  had  included  in  the  sale  a 
statue  of  Augustus  ;  that  among  worshippers  of  Augustus  —  who  ac- 
cording to  the  hard  story  of  Tacitus,  were  to  be  found  in  all  homes 
like  a  college  [of  priests]  —  he  had  (Ibid.)  admitted  an  actor.     Marcellus 


8  JUDAISM  AT   EO:\rE.  [CH.  I. 

InA.  D.  19  the  "  terribly  severe  accusations  of  Unbelief" 
were  weapons  employed  by  the  patrician  against  the 
popular  party.^^  Among  items  of  this  contest  was  the 
fault  found  with  Drusus,  son  of  Tiberius,  in  A.  D.  22, 
after  his  entry  on  the  tribuneship :  "  Were  all  things 
fallen  so  low  that  even  a  youth,  on  accepting  such  honor, 
should  not  approach  the  Gods  of  Eome  ?  .  .  .  Was  the 
ruler  of  the  Imman  race  imbued  with  such  ideas ;  was 
this  his  first  lesson  from  his  father's  teachings  ?  "^^ 

We  find  later,  that  two  persons  of  the  same  family  name 
were  charged  respectively  with  Unbelief  and  with  ad- 
herence to  Foreign  Superstition.^^  We  find  that  after  the 
aristocratic  revolt  of  A.  D.  31,  charges  of  Unbelief  were 
a  customary  resource  of  the  patrician  faction  against  those 
in  the  popular  party  whose  relatives  they  had  murdered. 

was  charged  (Tac.  An.  1,  74)  with  cutting  the  head  from  a  statue  of  Au- 
gustus ;  Kubrius  (Tac.  An.  1,  7.0,  with  having  "violated  the  divinity 
of  Augustus  by  perjury."  Tiberius  treated  the  first  three  charges  as  not 
deserving  consideration.  His  remarks  on  the  last,  after  allowing  for 
alteration  of  his  phraseology  by  Tacitus,  seem  to  have  been  that  a  man 
who  perjuredhimself  "by  Jupiter"  or  "by  Augustus"  was  equally  guilty. 
The  wording  of  Tacitus  might  cause,  and  was  probably  intended  to 
convey,  an  inference  that  Tiberius  heartily  endorsed  the  deification  of 
his  father. 

11  "  Tiberius  [that  is,  the  Senate  in  spite  of  him  and  from  hostility 
to  him]  was  terribly  severe  in  accusations  of  Unbelief,  if  any  one  were 
charged  with  saying  or  doing  anything  unbecoming  towards,  not  only 
Augustus,  but  himself  (?)  and  his  mother.  (?)"  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  19. 
Compai'e  note  9,  as  also  in  the  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-notes  3,  48,  and 
114.  Caligula,  two  years  subsequently  to  the  death  of  Tiberius,  after 
convicting  the  Senate  from  its  own  records  of  having  perpetrated  the 
very  murders  which  it  was  charging  upon  Tiberius,  seems  to  have 
selected  especially  the  charges  of  dtr^jSeta,  Unbelief  (see  Appendix,  Note 
G,  foot-note  114),  for  the  purpose  of  engraving  them  on  a  brazen  tablet 
or  pillar.  Probably  these  implied,  that  when  senators  wished  to  destroy 
an  opi)onent  guiltless  of  wrong-doing,  they  charged  him  with  Unbelief. 

12  Tac.  An.  3,  59.  We  find  in  Dio  Cass.  57,  21  and  -2;?,  that 
charges  of  Unbelief  were,  in  A.  d.  22,  still  a  stajjlo  article. 

1^  Pomponius  was  charged  with  do-^^eta,  Unbclirf ;  (Dio  Cass.  59,  c)  ; 
Pompouia,  with  adherence  to  Foreign  Superstition  (Tac.  ^i/t.  13,  o2). 


§111.]  THE  ARISTOCRACY  ITS   CHIEF  ENEMY.  9 

Caligula,  whose  parents  had  been  leaders  of  that  faction, 
effected,  on  his  accession,  a  political  truce  and  a  brief 
cessation  of  these  prosecutions.^^  During  his  illness, 
however,  in  the  same  year,  the  aristocracy  plotted  rebellion, 
and  again  resorted  to  these  charges  as  a  ready  means  of 
parrying  indictment  for  their  crimes. 

When  Claudius  succeeded  Caligula,  the  aristocracy,  as 
will  be  explained  under  its  proper  date,  needed  to  strength- 
en their  coadjutor  Herod.  Therefore  accusations  Ibr  Un- 
belief were  temporarily  suspeuded,^^  as  also  any  re-expul- 
sion of  the  Jews.     The  latter  w^as  carried  out  in  a.  d.  52. 

In  the  beginning  of  Nero's  reign  an  abortive  effort  was 
made  towards  prosecuting  for  Foreign  Superstition,  but 
nothing  apparently  was  effected  in  that  direction  until 
after  the  commencement  of  the  Jewish  Eebellion.  Prior 
to  that  date  either  the  influence  of  Seneca,  or  of  Nero's 
wife  Popprea,  the  former  a  Stoic,  the  latter  a  monotheist, 
or  a  natural  reaction  against  the  violent  patricianism  of  the 
preceding  reign,  may  have  prevented  it.  After  the  Jewish 
Eebellion  had  commenced,  Unbelief  became  again  the 
subject  of  prosecution,  not  only  under  Nero,  but  under  his 
three  temporary  successors.  "Vespasian  [in  a.  d.  70] 
sent  to  Eome  and  wiped  out  the  stigma  from  those,  both 
living  and  dead,  who  under  Nero  and  his  successors  had 
been  condemned  upon  charges  of  Unbelief"  ^^ 

In  the  brief  reign  of  Titus  the  aristocracy  regained 
much  of  their  political  influence,  but  trials  for  Unbelief 
or  impiety  were  not  allowed.-^''' 

^*  In  A.  D.  37  Caligula  "  stopped  the  accusations  for  Unbelief." — Dio 
Cass.  59,  4.  Caligula  "discharged  those  who  were  imprisoned  .  .  . 
and  set  aside  the  charges  of  Unbelief  from  which  he  saw  that  most  of 
them  were  suffering."  —  Dio  Cass.  59,  0. 

^^  Claudius,  "not only  in  his  decree  [a.  d.  41],  but  practicallj^,  put  a 
stop  to  accusations  for  Unbelief. "— Dio  Cass.  60,  3.  "He  discharged 
those  who  had  fallen  [into  fetters]  because  of  Unbelief  and  such 
charges."  —  Dio  Cass.  60,  4. 

1^  Dio  Cass.  66,  9. 

1'^  Dio  Cass.  66,  lO.  An  explanatory  remark  which  Dio  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Titus  would,  if  it  be  not  an  invention,  or  if  its  connection 
have  not  been  altered,  imply  that  dae^eia  in  this  instance  meant  disre- 


10  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  L 

Whetlier  the  prosecutions  against,  and  expulsion  of, 
Atheists  and  Unbelievers,  at  the  close  of  Doniitian's  reign, 
were  his  doings,  or  whether  the  aristocracy  carried  them 
out  during  his  absence  and  from  hostility  to  him,  will  be 
discussed  under  its  appropriate  date.  JSTerva,  his  suc- 
cessor, belonged  to  the  popular  party,  and  during  his  brief 
reign  Unbelievers  in  the  national  deities  were  recalled. 

Under  Trajan  aristocratic  ideas  w^ere  dominant.  Be- 
tween his  government  and  the  Jews  a  bitter  state  of  feel- 
ing existed. 

It  deserves  notice  that  the  party  which  so  zealously 
proscribed  its  opponents  for  Unbelief,  confessed,  in  the 
time  of  Claudius,  its  utter  ignorance  of  how  the  gods  were 
to  be  served,  and  needed  to  summon  learned  slaves  from 
Etruria,  who  were  supposed  to  have  knowledge  on  the 
subject. 

Connected  with  this  question  of  Unbelief  was  the  po- 
sition assigned  to  praise  of  Homer  as  a  test  of  orthodoxy. 
If  Caligula  expressed  contempt  for  him,  we  can  at  once 
recognize  that  Caligula  was  no  friend  to  patricianism.^^ 
If  Claudius  frequently  and  publicly  quoted  the  poet,^^  his 
patricianism  would  be  a  safe  inference.  If  Dio  Chrysos- 
tom  did  not  believe  Homer,  he  was  on  that  account 
charged  with  Unbelief. ^*^  Plutarch  tried  to  be  on  both 
sides  of  the  fence  simultaneously ,^1  and  so  perhaps  did 
those  who  allegorized  Homer.^^ 

Vespasian's  reign  was  a  coalition  between  himself  as 
head  of  the  popular  party,  and  Mucianus  as  leader  of  the 
moderate  conservatives.     The  Senate  was  so  reconstituted 

spect  to  the  prince.    Compare  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  v.  4,  and  Note 
B,  §  II.  2. 

18  See  Ch.  VIII.  note  55.  w  Sueton.  Claud.  42. 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  63. 

21  See  under  Ch.  X.  §  iv.  the  conclusion  of  sub-section  10. 

22  "  In  one  of  the  manuscripts  [from  Herculaneuni]  which  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  interpreters  when  I  visited  tlie  museum,  the  author  indulges 
in  the  speculation  that  all  the  Homeric  personages  were  allegorical  ;  that 
Agamemnon  was  the  ether,  Achilles  the  sun,  Helen  the  earth,  Paris  the 
air,  Hector  the  moon,  etc." — Lyell,  Gcolorm,  Vol.  2,  note  on  pp. 
157,  158.     Edit.  Loudon,  1835. 


§  IV.]        THE   AKISTOCKACY   OPPOSE   GKEEK   CULTURE.  11 

by  him  as  to  represent,  for  a  time  at  least,  better  ideas, 
and  in  liis  reign  dissent  from  heathen  theology  did  not 
entail  imprisonment  and  loss  of  life,  nor  even,  if  we  may 
judge  from  the  elder  Pliny's  case,  of  social  standing.^^ 

§  IV.    They  opjJose  its  Associate,  Greek  Culture. 

A  relationship  existed  between  Judaism  and  Greek 
culture,  on  the  nature  and  cause  of  which  some  remarks 
will  hereafter  be  offered.^  Any  sketch  of  hostility  by 
patricians  to  the  former  would  be  imperfect  without  men- 
tion of  their  hostility  to  the  latter. 

It  is  plain,  that,  from  an  early  date,  Greek  culture, 
accompanied  not  improbably  by  monotheistic  ideas  of 
human  rights,  was  an  object  of  special  jealousy  to  patri- 
cians.^^    On  the  contrary,  in  the  days  of  JuHus  Ccesar, 

23  "  I  think  it  a  liunmn  imbecility  to  iiifj^uire  for  the  appearance  and 
form  of  [a]  god."—  Pliiiy,  Nat.  Hist.  2,  5,  1.  "  The  belief  of  marriages 
among  the  gods,  and  that  in  such  an  age  no  one  has  been  born  therefrom  ; 
that  some  gods  are  superannuated  and  forever  hoary,  others  youths  aud 
boys,  [some]  black,  winged,  lame,  born  from  an  egg,  also  living  and  dy- 
ing on  alternate  days,  is  the  puerility  of  pei-sons  almost  insane.  But  it  is 
the  excess  of  impudence  to  fabricate  the  existence  among  them  of  adul- 
teries and  thereto  of  quarrels  and  hatreds,  and  even  that  there  are  tutelar 
divinities  of  thieves  and  criminals.  It  is  god  [like  ?]  deus  est  for  a  mor- 
tal to  assist  a  mortal,  and  this  is  the  way  to  eternal  glory.  By  this  path 
the  Eoman  leaders  trod.  By  it  Vespasian,  the  greatest  ruler  of  any  age, 
now  treads  with  celestial  step,  in  company  with  his  children."  —  Pliny, 
Nat.  Hist.  2,  5,  3,  4,  Pliny  was  a  Pantheist.  His  views  of  what  be- 
fitted a  divine  nature  accord  with  monotheistic  ones,  and  contradict  what 
had  been  upheld  by  the  aristocracy.  He  leaned  to  the  popular  side,  for 
he  wrote  a  life  of  Pomponius,  and,  as  above  seen,  praised  Vespasian. 

2*  See  Ch.  XIII.  §  iv.  and  close  of  §  i. 

^  According  to  Suetonius  (De  Hlust.  Gram.  2),  the  earliest  teacher 
of  grammar  at  Rome  was  Crates.  He  was  a  Stoic,  born  at  Mallus  in 
Cilicia,  educated  at  Tarsus,  and,  for  a  time,  chief  librarian  at  Pergamus. 
He  came  to  Rome  about  B.  c.  157,  as  ambassador  of  King  Attains. 

"Rhetoric  also,  in  like  manner  as  grammar,  found  a  late  reception 
among  us  [Romans]  and  also  a  somewhat  more  difficult  one,  since  the 
fact  is  well  established,  that  it  was  cultivated  sometimes  under  prohibi- 
tion. .  .  .  In  the  consulship  of  Gains  Fannius  Straho  and  M.  Valerius 


12  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  I. 

when  popular  ideas  had  ascendency,  Greek  culture 
found  a  welcome.  He  gave  to  physicians  and  teachers 
the  right  of  lioman  citizenship,''^'^  so  that  when,  in  after 
years,  foreigners,  or,  according  to  Pliny,  Greeks  specially, 
were  expelled,  an  exception  had  to  be  made  in  favor  of 
these  two  classes.^'^     At  a  later  date,  after  the  reactionary 

Messcda  [b.  c.  161] .  .  .  they  [the  Senate]  decreed  that  '  M.  Pomponius 
the  prajtor  shall  take  such  measures,  and  make  such  provisions,  as  the 
good  of  the  Republic  and  the  duty  of  his  office  require,  that  NO  phi- 
losophers  OP.  RHETORICIANS   BE   SUFFERED   AT   ROME.' 

"After  some  interval,  the  censors,  Cnseus  Doniitius  .(Enobarbus  and 
Lucius  Licinius  Crassus  [b.  c.  92],  issued  the  following  edict  upon  the 
same  subject  :  '  It  is  reported  to  us  that  certain  persons  have  insti- 
tuted a  new  kind  of  discipline  ;  that  our  youth  resort  to  theii'  schools  ; 
that  they  [to  evade  the  law]  have  assumed  the  title  of  Latin  Rhet- 
oricians ;  and  that  young  men  waste  their  time  there  for  whole  days 
together.  Our  ancestors  have  ordained  what  instruction  it  is  fitting 
their  children  should  receive,  and  what  schools  they  should  attend. 
These  novelties,  contrary  to  the  usages  and  customs  of  our  ancestors,  we 
neither  approve,  nor  do  they  a];)pear  to  us  good.  Wherefore  it  appears 
to  be  our  duty  that  we  should  notify  our  judgment  both  to  those  who 
keep  such  schools  and  to  those  who  are  in  the  practice  of  freijuenting 
them,  that  they  meet  our  disapprobation.' 

"But  the  same  mode  of  teaching  was  not  adopted  by  all.  .  .  ,  Nor 
did  they  omit,  on  occasion,  to  resort  to  translations  from  the  Greek,  and 
to  expatiate  in  the  praise,  or  to  launch  their  censures  on  the  faults,  of 
illustrious  men.  They  also  dealt  with  matters  connected  with 
EVERY-DAY  LIFE,  pointing  out  sucli  as  are  useful  and  necessary,  and 
such  as  are  hurtful  and  needless." — Sueton.  De  Clar.  Rhetor.  1,  Bohn's 
trans,  altered. 

Cato  the  censor,  in  his  old  age,  not  improbably  between  B.  c.  160  and 
B.  c.  150,  wrote  as  follows  to  his  son  :  "I  will  speak  in  its  proper 
place  concerning  those  Greeks.  .  .  .  Wlienever  that  race  shall  iinjmrt 
[to  us]  its  literature,  it  will  corrupt  all  things,  and  yet  more  if  it  shall 
send  its  physicians  hither." — Cato  quoted  in  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  29,  7,  1. 
"He  [Cato  the  censor]  always  maintained,  moreover,  that  all  Greeks 
SHOULD  r,E  EXPELLED  FROM  Italy."  —  Pliuy,  Nat.  Jlist.  7,  31,  4. 

20  Sueton.  Cccs.  43. 

2''  "  The  ancients  .  .  .  are  said  .  .  .  when  they  expelled  Greeks 
FRo:\r  Italy,  long  after  Cato's  time,  to  have  excepted  physicians." — 
Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  29,  8,  1,  '2.  This  took  place  under  Augustus.  "On 
one  occasion,  in  a  season  of  great  scarcity,  ...  he  [Augustus]  ordered  out 


§TV.]         THE   ARISTOCEACY   OPPOSE   GREEK   CULTURE.  13 

reign  of  Claudius,  we  find  even  medical  science  decried 
by  the  aristocracy,  as  can  safely  be  inferred  from  the  lan- 
guage of  Pliny  in  defending  it.^^ 

In  determining  the  relations  between  patricianism  and 
Greek  culture,  the  sequence  of  events  claims  attention. 
Before  the  popular  party  gained  ascendency,  we  find  such 
culture  decried  or  prohibited.  During  the  ascendency  of 
that  party  it  was  honored.  Subsequently,  when  Augustus, 
under  patrician  infiuence,  attacked  and  overthrew  An- 
tony, we  find  that  Dio  Cassius  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Agrippa,  the  leader  of  patricianism,  an  argument  for, 
and  into  the  mouth  of  Mcecenas,  the  patron  of  Greek 
culture,  an  argument  against  the  abdication  by  Augus- 
tus of  his  authority ,^^  which  would,  at  that  date,  have 
meant  the  restoration  of  unlimited  power  to  the  Senate. 
When  patricianism  gained  yet  more  control,  and  drove  its 
opponents  from  the  Senate,  Maecenas  fell  into  disfavor.^*^ 

of  the  city  ...  all  foreigners,  excepting  physicians  and  the  teachers  of 
the  liberal  sciences.  Part  of  the  domestic  slaves  were  also  ordered  to 
be  dismissed."  —  Sueton.  August.  42,  Bohn's  trans.  The  pretext  for 
expulsion  was  a  dearth,  the  result  of  accident  or  design.  The  real 
motive  was,  doubtless,  a  political  one.  Dio  Cassius  (55,  -26)  mentions  a 
banishment  of  gladiators  and  slaves  in  A.  D.  6,  because  of  dearth.  The 
expulsion  of  Greeks  may  have  taken  place  then,  or  earlier. 

^  Pliny,  29,  8,  5. 

29  The  argument  of  Agrippa  is  in  Dio  Cass.  52,  2  - 13  ;  that  of  Maece- 
nas follows  it  in  §§  14  -  40.  The  conclusion  of  the  former  and  beginning 
of  the  latter  are  lost.  We  can  safely  infer  that  Agrippa  and  Maecenas 
held  opposing  views,  or  they  would  not  have  been  selected  as  opposing 
speakers.  The  arguments  attributed  to  them  cannot  be  trusted  as  rep- 
resenting their  respective  views  on  points  introduced.  These  argu- 
ments are  the  work  of  some  dexterous  senatorial  politician.  He  makes 
Agrippa  —  the  leader  and  embodiment  of  the  oligarchy  —  assume  pop- 
ular government  as  the  alternative  to  monarchical  rule,  and  makes 
Maecenas  suggest  an  expurgation  of  the  Senate,  effected  by  his  enemies 
at  a  date  which  ended  his  political  career. 

^  "Between  B.C.  21  and  16,  ...  we  have  direct  evidence  that  a 
coolness,  to  say  the  least,  had  sprung  up  between  the  emperor  and  his 
faithful  minister.  .  .  .  The  political  career  of  Maecenas  may  be  consid- 
ered as  then  at  an  end." —  Smith,  Diet,  of  Gr.  and  Rom.  Biog.  2,  89-2, 
803.     It  will  be  remembered  that  the  patrician  plot  whereby  nearly  all 


14  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  I. 

Yet  later,  under  Augustus,  we  find,  during  this  patrician 
rule,  an  ejection  of  tlie  Greek  population.  Tlie  exclusion 
of  Latin  Stoics  from  public  affairs  ^^  was  due,  doubt- 
less, to  their  affinity  with  those  exponents  of  Greek  cul- 
ture who  had  borrowed  most  from  Judaism. 

The  scantiness  of  any  literature  save  Greek  must  have 
made  it,  or  translations  from  it,  the  main  resource  for 
filling  libraries.  It  accords,  therefore,  with  what  we  have 
just  seen,  that  Julius  Cassar,  the  popular  leader,  should 
have  been  the  first  to  plan  a  public  library  at  Eome,  and 
wlien  death  prevented  him  from  accomplishing  it,  that 
PoUio,  one  of  his  generals,  prominent  on  the  popular  — 
aixl  perhaps  also  on  the  monotheistic  —  side,  should  have 
been  the  earliest  to  establish  one.^^  Whether  the  two 
libraries  afterwards  started  by  Augustus  were  freely  open 
to  the  popular  party  and  to  its  literatuee  may  (see  Ch. 
V.  note  58)  be  doubted. 

After  A.  D.  19,  when  monotheism  at  Eome  became  il- 
legal, the  more  conscientious  and  self-respecting  Greeks 
may,  especially  in  aristocratic  reigns,  have  been  chary  of 
residing  there.  Such  as  were  willing  vehemently  to 
advocate  heathen  customs  and  heathen  deities  might  still 
be  welcomed  by  patricians.  The  Greek  population  of  the 
city  not  improbably  deteriorated  after  the  above-men- 
tioned date. 

§  V.  Close  of  Jewish  Infiuence  in  Europe. 
A  benevolent  law  of  Domitian  or  Nerva  had,  in  Hadri- 
an's time,  been  misapplied,  in  some  regions  at  least,   as 

members  of  the  popular  party  were  eliminated  from  the  Senate  took 
place  in  b.  c.  18  or  b.  c.  17,  under  the  lead  of  A.gi'iijpa.  Maecenas 
is  said  (Dio  Cass.  55,  7  ;  Seneca,  Ejnd.  114,  s)  to  have  advocatetl  hu- 
mane measures  as  well  as  Greek  literature.  That  Tacitus  (An.  14,  53), 
by  terming  the  leisure  of  Miecenas  vclut  peregrinum,  meant  to  stigmatize 
it  as  anti-Roman  and  unpatriotic,  is  more  than  probable. 

^^  "I  call  your  attention  to  those  Stoics,  who,  excluded  rc]>iibJica  from 
public  affairs,  have  retired  to  a  cultivation  of  []irivate]  life  and  to  the 
establishment  of  laws  for  the  human  race."  —  Seneca,  Episl,.  14,  13; 
O})]).  Philos.  2,  1.30. 

32  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  202,  col.  2,  art.  BiUiothcca. 


§v.]  CLOSE    OF   JEWISH   INFLUENCE   IN    EUKOPE.  15 

a  prohibition  to  the  Jews  of  their  national  rite.  This 
caused,  about  A.  D.  130,  a  wide-spread  and  embittered  war 
of  several  years'  duration.  The  war  stamped  itself  in  un- 
mistakable characters  on  the  mental  and  social  history  of 
the  second  century  as  one  of  the  noteworthy  contests  in 
the  world's  history  ;  yet  liistorianshave  scarcely  mentioned 
or  alluded  to  this  remarkable  struggle.  After  its  termi- 
nation the  influence  of  Jews  in  Europe  was  at  an  end. 
Thenceforward  they  were  an  isolated  people,  unappre- 
ciated, and  too  often  calumniated  or  maltreated,  whilst, 
no  doubt,  they  suffered  in  character  and  culture  from  the 
position  in  which  they  were  placed. 

In  Asia  the  remnants  of  Jewish  influence  must  have 
been  strong,  for  both  Mohammedanism  and  Eastern  Chris- 
tianity bear  imprints  of  it.^^  In  Africa  also  it  nmst  have 
attracted  attention  in  the  third  century  if  not  later.^^ 


^  Mohammedans  have  not  only  adopted  many  Jewish  opinions,  but  at 
least  one  Jewish  custom,  that  of  abstinence  from  pork.  The  Oriental 
Chiu'ch,  according  to  Routh  {Reliq.  Sacrcc,  1,  343,  note),  imitates  Jews 
in  forbidding  the  eating  of  blood. 

^  Tertullian  mentions  (Adv.  Judceos,  1 ;  Oj^p.  p.  205,  A)  a  dispute  be- 
tween a  convert  to  Judaism  and  a  Christian  as  having  attracted  a  crowd, 
part  of  whom  sided  with  each.  Compare  his  remarks  cited  in  Ch.  IV.  note 
11,  concerning  heathen  suspension  of  work  on  the  Sabbath.  Commodianus 
also  cannot  have  written  earlier  than  the  third  century.  He  was  not  an 
Asiatic,  for  he  ■5\Tote  in  Latin.  His  style  renders  probable  that  he  lived 
in  Africa.  In  his  Instructions  he  addresses  heathens  of  doubtful 
mind  in  the  following  manner  : 

"Why  in  the  synagogue  do  you  v\m  to  the  Pharisees 
That  [God]  may  be  made  merciful  to  you,  whom  outside  you  deny  ? 
You  go  outside,  you  again  seek  [heathen]  temples. 
You  wish,  between  each,  to  live,  but  will  thereby  perish." 

Commodianus,  Instruct.  24,  11-14. 

What !  do  you  wish  to  be  half  Jew,  half  heathen  ? 

But  you  go  to  those  from  whom  you  can  leam  nothing  ; 
You  leave  their  doors  and  go  thence  to  idols. 
Ask  what  is  the  first  precept  in  the  Law. 

Of  God's  precepts  they  narrate  to  you  only  the  marvellous." 

Commodianus,  Instruct.  37i  1-13. 


16  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CII.  II. 

During  the  whole  period  when  Jews  exercised  an  in- 
fluence at  Eome,  even  when  most  favored,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  tliey  sought  or  held  office.  Of  this  the 
probable  explanation  is,  that  ofticial  position  would  have 
brought  them  into  such  contact  with  idolatry  as  was  re- 
pugnant to  their  religious  views.  The  same  repugnance 
induced  many  Christians  to  avoid  and  condemn  ofdce- 
holding.  The  political  importance  of  the  Jews  inside  of 
Italy  must  have  been  owing  almost  solely  to  their  influence 
on  the  popular  mind,  — a  remark  which  is  less  true  of  their 
position  in  Asia.  There  it  is  evident  that  they  sometimes 
held  office,  for  in  Caesarea,  where  the  majority  of  the 
population  were  heathen,  the  city  government  was,  during 
a  part  of  Nero's  reign,  in  the  hands  of  the  Jews.  It  was 
transferred  to  the  heathens  just  before  the  war  broke 
out.^ 


CHAPTER   II. 

CAUSES  OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE. 

§  I.    Chief  Causes. 

The  causes  of  Jewish  influence  upon  heathens  admit 
of  division  into  two  classes.  The  main  ones  will  be  pre- 
sented in  this  section,  leaving  the  secondary  and  perhaps 
doubtful  ones  for  subsequent  consideration. 

Jewish  views  of  God  and  of  religious  duties,  especially 
as  advocated  by  the  thoughtfully  liberal,  commended 
themselves  infinitely  more  to  common  sense  and  moral 
sense  than  did  those  of  heathens.  These  views  of  God 
encouraged  right  effort  and  strengthened  conscience,  so 
that  the  character  of  Jews  and  their  converts  was  ele- 
vated to  a  higher  average  than  that  of  heathens.  The 
points  of  difference  between  the  two  systems  and  their 
followers  claim  attention  seriatim. 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  I.  foot-note  3. 


§  I.I.J       CAUSES  OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.  17 

1.  Judaism  alone,  among  religions  on  earth  prior  to 
Christianity,   taught  the  existence  of    A   Divine  Being 

WHO  TOOK  INTEEEST  IN  THE  MORAL  EDUCATION  OF  MANKIND. 

This  Being  was  represented  as  supreme  in  power,  wisdom, 
and  goodness ;  as  having,  because  of  his  interest  in  man, 
made  a  revelatiou,^  which  was  addressed  to  his  moral 
sense.^ 

1  Very  ignorant  and  debased  tribes  or  nations  may  have  no  thought  on 
the  object  of  man's  existence,  nor  any  desire  beyond  the  supply  of  daily 
gratifications  ;  but  in  the  Roman  Empire,  when  Judaism  was  spreading, 
there  must  in  all  classes  have  been  thoughtful  and  cultivated  persons 
with  deeper  wants.  Such  persons  would  thankfully  receive  and  examine 
the  claims  of  Judaism.  To  use  the  language  of  another:  "It  is  not 
true,  .  .  .  that  intellectual  weakness  most  stands  in  need  of  religion,  or 
is  most  fitted  to  feel  the  need  of  it ;  but  it  is  intellectual  strength.  I 
hold  no  truth  to  be  more  certain  than  this,  that  every  mind,  in  propor- 
tion to  its  real  development  and  expansion,  is  dark,  is  disproportioned, 
and  unhappy,  without  religion.  If  in  this  life  alone  it  has  hope,  it  is 
of  all  minds  the  most  miserable." —  "Dewey,  Works,  1,  27S.  "  Human- 
ity, in  fine,  and  especially  in  its  growing  cultivation,  is  too  hard  a  lot,  it 
appears  to  me,  if  God  has  not  opened  for  it  the  fountains  of  revelation." 
—  Dewey,  JForks,  3,  '2.56. 

In  this  connection  a  fact  calls  for  earnest  consideration  ;  namely,  that 
no  COMMUNITY,  destitute  of  a  belief  in  revelation,  has  ever  believed  in 
a  Moral  Ruler  of  the  universe. 

'-^  If  the  ceremonial  law  —  concerning  which  some  remarks  occur  in 
the  next  section  —  be  regarded  as  an  original  part  of  Judaism,  a  part  of 
the  revelation  made  to  Moses,  then  that  revelation,  though  addressed  to 
the  moral  sense,  was  not  exclu.sively  so  addressed.  Accordingly,  as 
we  come  to  one  or  a  different  conclusion  on  this  subject,  the  following 
remarks  concerning  Christianity  will  appear  partially  or  fully  applicable 
to  Judaism  :  "  I  ask  you  to  consider  on  what  principle  of  human 
nature  the  Christian  revelation  is  intended  to  bear.  ...  It  was  plainly 
not  given  to  enrich  the  intellect  by  teaching  philosophy,  or  to  perfect  the 
imagination  and  taste  by  furni.shing  sublime  and  beautiful  models  of 
composition.  It  was  not  meant  to  give  sagacity  in  public  life,  or  skill 
and  invention  in  common  affairs.  It  was  undoubtedly  designed  to  de- 
velop all  the.se  faculties,  but  secondarily,  and  through  its  influence  on  a 
higher  principle.  It  addresses  itself  primarily,  and  is  especially  adapted, 
to  the  moral  power  in  man.  ...  Is  there  a  foundation  in  the  moral 
principle  tor  peculiar  intei-positions  in  its  behalf  ?     I  affirm  that  there  is. 

B 


18  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  II. 

Heathenism  liad  a  multitude  of  discordant  deities,  not 

ONE  OF  AVHOM  WAS  SUPPOSED  TO  HAVE  SHOWN  INTEREST  IN 
man's    MORAL   IMPROVEMENT    OR    MORAL     ENCOURAGEMENT. 

Their  alleged  communications  to  men,  however  frequent, 
were  never  upon  moral  topics,^  nor  were  questions  in 
morality,  so  far  as  records  exist,  ever  addressed  to  their 
oracles.*     Their  own  characters  as  depicted,  not  merely 

I  afRrm  that  a  broad  distinction  exists  between  our  moral  nature  and  our 
other  capacities.  Conscience  is  the  supreme  power  within  us.  .  .  .  All 
our  other  powers  become  useless  and  Averse  than  useless,  unless  con- 
trolled by  the  principle  of  duty." — Channing,  Works,  3,  335,  336. 

2  Omens  were  deemed  hccky  or  unlucky.  They  betokened  divine 
favor  or  disfavor,  success  or  its  opposite,  to  a  journey  or  voyage  ;  to  a 
military  expedition  or  battle  ;  to  a  purchase  or  a  marriage  or  to  a 
public  meeting.  If  resort  were  ever  had  to  them  as  a  means  of  deter- 
mining uprightness  towards  our  fellows,  I  have  been  unable  to  iind  an 
instance  of  it.     Compare  notes  13  and  14. 

Cicero  makes  Cotta,  the  Roman  high-priest,  say :  "  All  mortals 
hold  that  they  receive  from  the  gods  external  advantages,  vineyards, 
grain-fields,  olive  groves,  productiveness  of  grain  and  frait ;  in  fine, 
every  advantage  and  convenience  of  life.  But  KO  one  ever  at- 
tributed [human]  virtue  to  a  divine  power,  as  if  it  had  been  received." 
Dc  Nat.  Beorum.  3,  36.  Tlie  connection  fairly  implies  not  only  that 
the  gods  do  not  confer  virtue,  but  that  they  do  not  aid  us  in  its  attain- 
ment. Compare  Plutarch,  close  of  second  citation  in  Ch.  X.  note  82,  and 
see  Ch.  VIII.  note  126. 

Seneca  says  :  "What  I  have  found  in  Athenodorus  is  true,  ^  Know 
that  you  will  then  he  free  from  all  [impropcr'\  desires  ichen  you  shall  have 
reached  that  point  that  you  shall  ask  nothing  of  [any']  god  except  ivhat  you 
can  ask  02'>enly.'  For  now  how  great  is  the  madness  of  mortals  !  They 
whisper  most  disgraceful  vows  to  the  gods.  If  any  one  approaches  to 
listen  they  become  silent,  and  what  they  are  unwilling  that  [a]  man 
should  know  they  narrate  to  [a]  god."  —  Ejnst.  10,  4,  ,5,  Compare  in 
Ch.  X.  note  53,  what  Lamprias  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Didymus. 

*  Compare  on  this  subject  foot-note  53  of  Ch.  X.  Plato,  whether  or 
not  influenced  by  the  teachings  of  Judaism,  rejected  the  prevalent 
ideas  of  divine  immorality  and  injustice.  From  him,  if  from  any  one, 
we  might  expect  an  appeal  to  oracles  on  topics  of  morality.  Yet  in  his 
model  republic  the  questions  to  be  laid  before  the  chief  of  oracles  are 
merely  ritual.  "To  the  Delphian  Apollo,  however,  there  remains  the 
GREATEST,  NOBLEST,  AND  MOST  IMPORTANT  (!)  of  legaliustitutions,    .    .    . 


§  I.  1.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.  19 

by  tradition  and  popular  belief,^  but  by  some  intelligent 
men,  would  have  rendered  tliem  unfit  associates  in  a 
decent  family.^  They  were  thought  willing  to  favor  vice 
and  crime  when  sufficiently  paid  for  it,  and  wrong-doers 

the  erection  of  temples,  sacrifices  and  other  services  to  the  gods,  demons, 
and  heroes ;  likewise  the  rites  of  the  dead  and  what  other  ceremonies 
should  be  gone  through,  with  a  view  to  their  propitiation.  .  .  .  Nor 
would  we  employ  any  other  interpreter  than  that  of  the  country,  .  .  . 
this  god  being  the  natural  interjireter  to  all  men  about  such  matters." — 
Plato,  Bejmblic,  4,  5,  Bohn's  trans.  2,  111.     (Ast,  4,  208.) 

^  In  judging  what  views  of  the  gods  were  most  prevalent,  the  state- 
ments of  tradition  and  of  the  poets  are  important,  because  they  were  the 
chief  source  of  popular  instruction  touching  the  divine  character.  These 
were  unworthy,  or  vile.  Plato  (Republic,  2,  17,  in  Bohn  2,  50,  and 
Ast  4,  112)  proposes  that  in  his  model  republic  no  one  shall  be  allowed 
to  narrate  them  either  in  allegory  or  othei-wise,  and  that  poets  shall  be 
"compelled,"  dvayKaareov,  to  teach  otherwise. 

Again,  in  hymns  to  the  gods,  we  should  expect  less  levity  than  in 
other  poetic  compositions.  Yet  these,  as  any  one  by  reading  them  can 
find,  are  destitute  of  moral  conceptions,  and  often  positively  vicious.  In 
Bohn's  translation  of  Homer,  The  Odyssey,  etc.,  pp.  349-426,  more  than 
thirty  such  hymns  will  be  found.  The  writings  of  Horace  (Odes,  1,  10, 
21,  30,  31,  35 ;  2,  10 ;  3,  3,  11,  18,  22,  25,  26 ;  4,  1,  2,  6)  furnish  other  speci- 
mens. The  Hymn  of  Cleanthes,  belonging  to  a  different  literature,  will 
be  mentioned  in  the  next  chapter. 

^  "There  is  a  treatise  of  Servius  Sulpitius,  a  prominent  man  [entitled] 
Quamobrem  mensa  linquenda  non  sit,  '  What  Events  forbid  leav- 
ing THE  Table.'  .  .  ,  They  who  believe  the  gods  to  be  present  in  all 
our  concerns  at  every  hour  have  instituted  these  rules,  and  have  accord- 
ingly handed  down  [to  us]  that  the  gods  were  to  be  pacified  even  by  our 
vices." —  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  28,  5,  i,  5.  Compare  touching  Pliny's 
position,  Ch.  I.  note  23. 

Tacitus,  alluding,  as  it  would  seem,  to  the  earthquakes  in  Campania, 
the  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  and  the  civil  broils  and  conflagrations  of 
Kome,  remarks:  "Never  has  it  been  made  manifest  by  more  fearful 
destructions  of  the  Roman  people,  nor  by  more  reliable  pi-oofs,  that  the 
gods  do  not  care  for  our  security  but  for  [their  own]  revenge. "  —  Tacitus, 
Hist.  1,  3.  Elsewhere,  the  same  writer,  after  iiarrating,  with  no  expres- 
sion of  mistrust,  a  silly  fabrication  concerning  Tiberius  and  an  astrolo- 
ger, proceeds  :  "  But  when  I  hear  such  and  similar  things,  my  judgment 
is  in  doubt  whether  mortal  aflairs  are  determined  by  fate  and  immutable 


20  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  II. 

sought  their  co-operation  in  misdeeds.  If  a  man  of 
thought  and  culture  discarded  tradition,  there  remained 
no  ground  on  which  to  believe  the  existence  of  any  speci- 
fied deity  in  the  catalogue.''  If  he  observed  evidence  of 
design  in  the  universe  or  its  management,  this  agreed 
with  Jewish  teaching,  —  with  the  idea  of  one  God  rather 
than  with  the  heathen  conception  of  many,  with  the 
belief  in  a  Creator,  rather  than  in  gods  born  since  the 
world  existed. 

Weak-minded  persons  might  dread  the  heathen  deities, 
and  conservative  politicians  might  be  eloquent  or  grandil- 
oquent over  the  "  national  "  gods,  but  respect  for  such 
beings  was  out  of  the  question. 

2.  If  we  now  consider  Eeligious  Duties,  we  shall 
find  between  heathens  and  Jews  a  difference  equally 
marked.  The  weekly  services  at  the  Jewish  synagogue 
included  teachings  concerning  God  and  human  duty.^ 

necessity,  or  by  chance.  Since  [on  this  point]  yon  will  find  the  wisest 
ancients,  as  well  as  their  imitators  [that  is,  the  Unquestionably  Or- 
thodox according  to  aristocratic  conservatism],  differing  from  each 
other  ;  many  of  them  holding  '  that  the  gods  care  nothing  for  our  be- 
ginning, our  end,  nor,  in  fine,  FOR  men  ;  that,  therefore,  very  frequently 
misfortune  attends  the  good  and  prosperity  the  worse.'  Others  think,  on 
the  contrary,  (?)  that  things  are  in  accordance  with  fate.  .  .  .  The  major- 
ity of  mortals  have  not  given  up  the  opinion  that  at  each  one's  birth  his 
futurity  is  determined."- — Tacitus,  Annals,  6,  22.  In  the  foregoing  an 
immutable  fate  seems  to  be  regarded  as  the  opposite  of  divine  indiff"erence 
towards  mortals.  Compare  in  Ch.  X.  iv.  10,  quotation  by  Plutarch  from 
the  Iliad,  24,  lines  525,  526,  and  also  his  first  quotation  from  Euripides. 

''  After  the  above  was  written,  I  noticed  the  following  :  "As  respect.s 
their  existence  and  care  for  us,  we  neither  know  nor  have  heard  of  them 
otherwise  than  from  traditions  and  from  the  poets  who  write  their 
genealogies  ;  and  these  veiy  persons  tell  us  that  they  are  to  be  moved 
and  persuaded  by  sacrifices  and  propitiatory  vows  and  ofi"erings  ;  —  both 
of  whirh  [namely,  their  existence  and  alleged  character]  we  are  to  be- 
lieve, or  neither."  —  Plato,  Ecpuhl-ic,  2,  8,  Bohn's  trans.  These  re- 
marks are  put  by  Plato  into  the  mouth  of  an  objector. 

*  The  earliest  Christian  assemblies  copied  from  the  synagogue  their 
method  of  conducting  religious  meetings.  In  fact  the  more  .Jewish 
Christians  must   frequently  have  worshipped  with  the    non-Christian 


§1.2.]        CAUSES  OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.         21 

These  services  must  have  been  imperfect,  for  they  were 
conducted  by  human  beings,  yet  the  heathen  wlio  entered 
wli£n  a  thoughtful  Jew  was  reading,  might  listen  to 
views  which  the  range  of  heathen  literature  nowhere 
presented,  —  to  the  idea  that  God  was  to  be  seeved  by 
justice  and  kindness  towards  our  fellows,  and  by  main- 
taining a  right  frame  of  mind ;  ^  that  this  was  the  service 

Jews  in  the  same  place  of  gathering.  Any  decided  difterence  in  the 
metJiod  of  conducting  such  meetings  would  have  occasioned  disagree- 
ments, and  left  obvious  traces. 

^  "What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  before  thy  God  ?  " —  Micah,  6,  s.  Compare 
Deut.  10,  1-2. 

' '  And  when  ye  reap  the  harvest  of  your  land,  thou  shalt  not  wholly 
reap  the  corners  of  thy  field,  neither  shalt  thou  gather  the  gleanings  of 
thy  harvest.  And  thou  shalt  not  glean  thy  vineyard,  neither  shalt  thou 
gather  every  gi-ape  of  the  vineyard  ;  thou  shalt  leave  them  for  the  poor 
and  stranger :  I  am  the  Lord  your  God. 

"Ye  shall  not  steal,  neither  deal  falsely,  neither  lie  one  to  another. 
And  ye  shall  not  swear  by  my  name  falsely,  neither  shalt  thou  profane 
the  name  of  thy  God  :  I  am  the  Lord. 

"Thou  shalt  not  defraud  thy  neighbor,  neither  rob  him  :  the  wages 
of  him  that  is  hired  shall  not  abide  with  thee  all  night  until  the  morn- 
ing. Thou  shalt  not  curse  the  deaf,  nor  put  a  stumbling-block  before 
the  blind,  but  shalt  fear  thy  God  :  I  am  the  Lord. 

"  Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness  in  judgment ;  thou  shalt  not  [in  giv- 
ing judgment]  respect  the  person  of  the  poor,  nor  honor  the  person  of 
the  mighty,  but  in  righteousness  shalt  thou  judge  thy  neighbor.  Thou 
shalt  not  go  up  or  down^  as  a  tale-bearer  among  thy  people  ;  neither 
shalt  thou  stand  against  the  blood  of  thy  neighbor  :  I  am  the  Lord. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  hate  thy  brother  in  thine  heart  ;  [yet]  thou  shalt  in 
any  wise  rebuke  thy  neighbor,  and  not  suffer  sin  upon  him.  Thou 
shalt  not  avenge,  nor  bear  any  grudge  against  the  children  of  thy  people, 
but  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself:  I  am  the  Lord.— Leviticus, 
19,  9-18. 

"Thou  shalt  rise  up  before  the  hoary  head,  and  honor  the  face  of  the 
old  man,  and  fear  thy  God  :  I  am  the  Lord. 

"And  if  a  stranger  sojourn  with  thee  in  your  land,  j'e  shall  not  vex 

him.  But  THE  STRANGER  THAT  DWELLETH  WITH  YOU  SHALL  BE  XINTO 
TOTT  AS  ONE  BORN  AMONG  YOTJ,  AND  THOU  SHALT  LOVE  HIM  AS  THYSELF  ; 

for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt  :  I  am  the  Lord  your  God. 
"Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness  in  judgment,  in  meteyard,  in  weight, 


22  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  II. 

which  he  most  desired.  If  the  heathen  listened  to  a  ju- 
diciously selected  psalm  or  hymn,  he  heard  what  might 
strengthen  moral  purpose,  quicken  right  affections,  or  aid 

or  in  measures.  Just  balances,  just  weights,  a  just  ephah,  and  a  just  hiu 
shall  ye  have  ;  I  am  the  Lord  your  God,  which  brought  you  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt.  Therefore  shall  ye  observe  all  my  statutes,  and  all  my 
judgments,  and  do  them  ;  I  am  the  Lord."  — Leviticus,  19,  3-2-37. 

"  The  Lord  j^our  God  .  .   .  regardeth  not  persons  nor  taketh  reward. 
He  executes  judgment  for  the  fatherless  and  widow  and  lovetii  the 

STRANGER.  .  .  .  LOVE  YE  THEREFORE  THE  STRANGER."  —  Dcut.  10, 
17-19. 

"  Hear  ye  the  word  of  Jehovah,  ye  princes  of  Sodom! 

Give  ear  to  the  instruction  of  our  God,  ye  people  of  Gomorrah  ! 

Wliat  to  me  is  tlie  multitude  of  j-our  sacrifices  ?  saith  Jehovah  ; 

I  am  satiated  with  bumt-offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts, 

In  the  blood  of  bullocks  and  of  lambs  and  of  goats  I  have  no  delight. 

Put  away  your  evil  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ; 

Cease  to  do  evil  ;  » 

Learn  to  do  well ; 

Seek  justice  ;  relieve  the  oppressed  ; 

Defend  the  fatherless  ;  plead  for  the  widow." 

Isaiah,  1,  10-18,  Noyes's  Translation. 
"Hear,  0  my  people,  and  I  will  speak! 

I  will  take  no  bullock  from  thy  house. 
Nor  he-goat  from  thy  folds  ; 

Do  I  eat  the  flesh  of  bulls, 

Or  drink  the  blood  of  goats  ? 

Offer  to  God  thanksgiving. 

And  pay  thy  vows  to  the  Most  High! 

"And  to  the  wicked  God  saith, 
To  what  purpose  dost  thou  talk  of  my  statutes  ? 
And  why  hast  thou  my  laws  upon  thy  lips  ? 
Thou,  who  hatest  instruction 

And  castest  my  words  behind  tliee!" 

Ps.  50,  7-17,  Noyes's  Translation. 
"  How  long  \vill  ye  judge  unjustly. 
And  favor  the  cause  of  the  wicked  ? 
Defend  tlie  poor  and  the  fatherless  ; 
Do  justice  to  the  wretclied  and  the  needy ! 
Deliver  the  poor  and  the  destitute  ; 
Save  them  from  the  hand  of  the  wicked !  " 

Ps.  82,  2-4,  Noyes's  Translation. 


§1.2.]  CAUSES   OF   JEWISH   INFLUENCE.  23 

devout  aspirations.^*'     Heathen  literature  contained  noth- 
ing which  resembled  it. 

10  "  The  Lord  is  merciful  and  kind, 
Slow  to  anger  and  rich  in  mercy." 

Ps.  103,  8,  Noycs's  Translation. 
"  Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help  ; 

Who  keepeth  truth  forever  ; 

Who  executeth  judgment  for  the  oppressed  ; 

Who  giveth  food  to  the  hungry. 

The  Lord  setteth  free  the  prisoners  ; 

The  Lord  openeth  the  eyes  of  the  blind  ;" 

The  Lord  raiseth  up  them  that  are  bowed  down  ; 

The  Lord  loveth  tlie  righteous  ; 

The  Lord  preserveth  the  strangers  ; 

He  relieveth  the  fatherless  and  the  widow  ; 

But  the  way  of  the  wicked  he  maketh  crooked." 

Ps.  146,  5-9,  Noyes's  Translation. 

"  The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  all  that  is  therein ; 
The  world,  and  they  who  inliabit  it. 
For  he  hath  fomided  it  ujjon  the  seas. 
And  established  it  upon  the  floods. 
Who  shall  ascend  the  hill  of  the  Lord  ? 
And  who  shall  stand  in  his  holy  place  ? 
He  that  hath  clean  hands  and  a  pure  heart ; 
Who  hath  not  inclined  his  soul  to  falsehood, 
Nor  sworn  deceitfully. 
He  shall  receive  a  blessing  from  the  Lord, 
And  favor  from  the  God  of  his  salvation." 

Ps.  24,  1-5,  Noyes's  Translation. 

"  Sing  unto  the  Lord,  0  ye  his  servants!  , 

And  praise  his  holy  name ! 
For  his  anger  endureth  but  a  moment. 
But  his  favor  through  life  ; 
In  the  evening  sorrow  may  be  a  guest, 
But  joy  Cometh  in  the  morning." 

Ps.  30,  4,  5,  Noyes's  Translation. 

"Teach  me,  0  Lord!  the  way  of  thy  statutes, 
Tliat  I  may  keep  it  to  the  end ! 
Give  me  understanding,  that  I  may  keep  thy  law  ; 
That  I  may  observe  it  with  my  whole  heart!  " 

Ps.  119,  33,  34,  Noyes's  Translation. 

"  May  we  fall  into  the  Lord's  hands 
And  not  into  the  hands  of  men. 
For  in  like  measure  with  his  greatness 
So  also  is  his  compassion." 

Sirach,  2,  18. 


24  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  II. 

Of  course,  a  Jew  who  deemed  ceremonial  observances 
ESSENTIAL  might  present  such  views  of  religion  as  would 
repel  nearly  all  heathens.  He  and  the  class  to  whom  he 
belonged  would  make  few  converts  or  none,  whilst  those 
who  taught  monotheism  and  morality  as  the  only  es- 
sentials "  would  make  many.  This  might  and  probably 
did  lead  to  separate  religious  assemblies,!^  the  heathens 
being  thus  brought  into  contact  with  the  more  liberal  Jews. 
If  a  heathen  were  intelligent  enough  to  study  Jewish  lit- 
erature, he  could  hardly  fail  to  perceive  that  almost  every 
book  which  it  contained  treated  more  or  less  of  moral 
duties.  He  might  be  perplexed  by  the  stress  some- 
times laid  on  ceremonial  observances ;  yet  if  these  were 
regarded  by  his  teachers  as  inapplicable  to  Gentiles,  as 
specially  enjoined  upon  Jews  for  reasons  already  buried 

1'  lu  the  Sibylline  Oracles   (2,  50,  51,  quoted  in  the  Appendix, 
Note  A,  §  VIII.)  God's  rewards  are  promised, 

"  even  to  Gentile  foreigners 
Who  live  righteously  and  know  one  God." 

A  non -Christian' Jew  is  quoted  in  one  of  the  gospels  as  saying,  "We  know, 
that  ...  if  any  one  be  a  Monotheist  and  do  his  will,  such  a  one  God 
listens  to."  — John,  9,  :>1.  The  commendation  of  Cornelius,  uttered  to  a 
Christian  Jew  (Acts,  10,  '22),  is,  that  "he  is  a  just  (or  right-dealing) 
man,  and  a  Fearer-of-God."  —  Peter,  though  needing  a  miracle  to  give 
him  confidefice,  endorses  the  view  of  the  non-ritualists:  "  In  every  ^dvei 
Gentile  community  the  Fearer-of-God,  who  does  rightly,  is  accepted  by 
him." — Acts,  10,  35.  "Hear  this  sole  conclusion  of  reason,  '  Fear  God 
and  keep  his  commandments,'  since  every  man  should  do  this." — Ecc 
12,  13.  See  also  Micah,  6,  8,  quoted  in  note  9.  On  the  meaning  of  the 
words  translated  "Monotheist"  and  "  Fearer-o^God "  see  Appendix, 
Note  B,  §  I.  Nos.  2  and  11.  Tlie  non-ritualists  probably  defended  their 
position  as  did  some  of  the  early  Christians,  by  alleging  that  Enoch,  Noah, 
and  others  had  pleased  God  without  observing  the  ritual  law,  which  could 
not  therefore  be  necessary  unless  for  descendants  of  Abraham.  Compare 
on  this  subject  Underworld  Mission,  pp.  8,  12. 

12  Synagogues  are  mentioned  (Acts,  6,  '.))  of  Libertines,  Cyrenians, 
Alexandrians,  Cilicians,  and  Asians  —  that  is,  denizens  of  the  small 
province  called  Asia  —  as  existing  at  Jerusalem.  Difference  of  language 
may  have  contributed  towards  this,  but  difference  of  views  and  habits 
was  probably  its  chief  cause. 


§  I.  2.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH   INFLUENCE.  25 

in  a  remote  antiquity,  they  would  present  less  difficulty 
to  him. 

If  the  same  man  examined  what  Heathenism  taught 
for  religious  duties,  he  found  nothing  but  rites,  cere- 
monies, and  augury.  Instruction,  whether  mental  or 
moral,  in  connection  with  religious  services,  was  un- 
known.^3  Much  of  what  passed  among  heathens  for 
practical  religion  —  namely,  augury  or  divination  —  he 
would  find  to  be  merely  fortune-telling  under  another 
name,^*  while  other  rites  and  ceremonies  were  mainly 
directed  towards  appeasing  a  not  very  good-tempered 
race  of  beings,^^  but  were  utterly  disconnected  from 
thoughts  of  right  behavior  between  man  and  man.  Even 
if  he  examined  the  one  or  two  exceptional  heathen 
writers,  who  attributed  to  the  gods  a  better  character 
than  the  popular  one,  yet  he  would  find  religious 
DUTIES  treated  as  having  no  connection  with  morality  ^^ 
or  with  human  improvement. 

1^  "  We  do  not  hear,  either  in  Greece  or  at  Rome,  of  any  class  of 
priests  on  whom  it  was  incumbent  to  instruct  the  people  respecting  the 
nature  and  principles  of  religion.  Of  preaching  there  is  not  the  slightest 
trace.  Religion  with  the  ancients  was  a  thing  which  was  handed  down 
by  tradition,  .  .  .  and  consisted  in  the  proper  performance  of  certain 
rites  and  ceremonies.  It  was  respecting  these  external  forms  alone  that 
the  pontiffs  were  obliged  to  give  instructions  to  those  who  consulted 
them." — Smith,  Did.  of  Antiq.  997,  998,  art.  Sacerdos.    Compare  note  3. 

1*  Xenophon  represents  Socrates  as  calling  the  attention  of  an  au- 
ditor to  this  benevolent  communicativeness  of  the  deities.  "If  we  are 
unable  to  foreknow  touching  future  events  what  [course  of  action]  will 
be  advantageous,  they  [the  gods]  assist  us  in  this  [by]  telling  to  inquir- 
ers, through  divination,  how  things  will  turn  out,  and  [by]  teaching  how 
they  will  eventuate  most  favorably." —  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  4,  3,  12. 
Compare  argument  of  Quintus  Cicero  in  Ch.  III.  note  67. 

15  In  Ch.  YIII.  §  IV.  will  be  quoted  from  Tacitus,  Annals,  11,  15, 
action  by  the  Senate,  and  a  communication  from  the  Emperor,  both  of 
which  imply  prevalent  opinion,  that  rites  were  for  the  pacification  of 
dissatisfied  deities.  See  also  the  comments  by  Tacitus  {Hist.  5,  13, 
quoted  hereafter  in  Ch.  X.  note  96)  on  Jewish  obduracy  in  not  attend- 
ing to  this  view  of  religion,  and  compare  it  with  his  views  of  the  gods 
already  given  in  note  6  of  the  present  chapter. 

1®  Views  of  Xenophon  and  Plato  concerning  the  gods  will  be  found  in 
2 


26  JUDAISM  AT   KOME.  [CII.  II. 

3.  In  proportion  to  human  development  is  the  desire 
for  a  FUTURE  EXISTENCE,  the  fitting  sequel  of  our  present 

the  Appendix,  Note  K,  §  i.  4,  and  §  ii.  11.  Xenophon  in  his  Memo- 
rabilia, 4,  6,  2-4,  makes  Socrates  explain  that  pichj,  or  practical  rec- 
ognition of  the  gods,  €v<T^^€ia,  consists  in  giving  the  gods  due  honor, 
that  is,  as  he  is  made  to  say,  in  giving  them  what  the  laws  decree  to 
them,  and  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  laws  ;  and  although  justice, 
wisdom,  GOODNESS,  beauty,  courage,  monarchy,  tyranny,  aristocracy, 
democracy,  and  plutocracy  are  treated  in  the  same  chapter,  and  temper- 
ance in  the  preceding  one,  yet  none  of  them  are  connected  with  or 
treated  as  eeligious  duties.  ElscAvhere  Xenophon  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Socrates  the  following  statement:  "You  see  that  the  god  at 
Delphi,  when  any  one  asks  him  how  he  may  do  a  pleasure  to  the 
gods,  answers,  '  Conformably  to  the  law  of  [your]  city.'  But  the  law, 
everywhere  doubtless,  is,  that  the  gods  are  to  be  pleased  by  means 
OF  SACRIFICES  in  proj)ortion  to  [each  one's]  property.  How  then  can 
ANY  ONE  honor  the  gods  in  a  more  beautiful  and  pious  way  than  by 
doing  as  they  themselves  command  ? "  —  Mcmorahilia,  4,  3,  IG.  Else- 
where, again,  Xenophon  states  {Mcinorahilia,  1,  3,  1)  that  Socrates  "re- 
garded as  superserviceable  and  vain  those  who  did  otherwise,"  that  is, 
who  devoted  to  the  gods  more  than  what  the  law  required.  Language 
of  this  kind  is  incompatible  with  the  belief,  that  a  right  life  was 
deemed  the  best  method  of  pleasing  the  gods.  Plato,  in  his  Laws, 
gives  his  ideal  of  religious  services.  "It  is  for  us  to  regulate  and  lay 
down  by  law,  in  conjunction  with  the  Delphic  oracles,  festivals,  [and] 
what  [are  to  be]  the  sacrifices  and  the  divinities,  to  whom  it  will  be  bet- 
ter and  more  advisable  for  the  state  to  sacrifice,  and  at  what  time  and 
how  many  in  number.  .  .  .  For  the  law  will  say  that  there  are  twelve 
festivals  to  the  twelve  gods,  from  whom  each  tribe  has  its  name,  and 
that  persons  are  to  make,  to  each  of  these,  monthly  sacrifices,  and  dances, 
and  musical  contests,  and  to  assign  the  gymnastic  exercises,  in  a  manner 
befitting  both  to  the  gods  themselves  and  the  several  seasons  ;  and  to 
distribute  the  female  festivals  likewise,  such  as  ought  to  be  separated  from 
the  men,  and  such  as  ought  not." —  Laws,  8,  1,  Bohn's  trans.  5,  .'512,  313. 
(Ast's  edit.  7,1)9,  lOO).  Again,  "Let  this  law  be  established,  that  Oiuv 
.  .  .  kpd  altars  to,  or  statues  of  the  gods  must  not  be  owned  in  private 
dwellings.  If  any  one  owns  separate  ones  from  the  public,  and  has 
private  rites  apart  from  the  public,  ...  let  whoever  becomes  cognizant 
thereof  announce  it  to  the  guardians  of  the  laws,  and  let  them  com- 
mand him  to  remove  his  sacred  objects  to  the  [locality  used  by  the] 
public.     If  they  cannot  persuade,  let  them  punisii  iiim  until  [the  ob- 


§1.4.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.  27 

one.^'^  If  the  universe  have  a  Moral  Ruler,  the  conclu- 
sion would  seem  almost  inevitable  that  such  a  life  is  in 
store  for  us.  If  no  such  Euler  exist,  the  hope  of  such 
a  life  is  vain.  The  propagandists  of  Judaism  in  the 
Roman  Empire  believed  in  a  future  existence.  Thought- 
ful Gentiles,  if  unhindered  by  prejudice,  would  be  pre- 
disposed towards  a  faith  which  gave  them  hope. 

4.  To  infer  that  the  average  character  of  Jews  sur- 
passed that  of  heathens  is  merely  to  assume  that  the 
laws  of  human  nature  were  not,  in  their  case,  suspended. 
Those  who  can  look  up  to,  commune  with,  and  derive 
encouragement  from  superior  benevolence  and  moral 
worth,  whether  human  or  divine,  must,  as  a  rule,  rise 
above  those  who  have  no  such  privilege.^^     The  presence 

jects]  shall  be  removed."  —  Laws,  10,  15  (Ast's  edit.  7,  298;  Bohn'a 
trans.  5,  454).  It  is  insupposable  that  Plato  deemed  keligious  ser- 
vices an  aid  to  moral  sense.     Compare  note  4. 

"  A  future  state,  unadapted  to  human  improvement  or  happiness, 
would  lack  attraction,  and  might  be  repulsive.  The  Buddhist  view  of 
wearisome  transmigrations  into  the  bodies  of  animals  and  reptiles  is  not 
merely  destitute  of  evidence,  but,  if  testimony  can  be  credited,  has  en- 
gendered a  desire  for  anniliilation. 

1^  In  the  third  century  before  the  Christian  era,  if  not  earlier,  Jesus, 
the  son  of  Sirach,  \vrote  or  compiled  a  work  which,  at  a  later  date, 
his  grandson  of  the  same  name  translated  into  Greek.  This  book, 
sometimes  called  Wisdom,  sometimes  Ecclesiasticus,  contains  passages 
which,  when  compared  with  anything  then  extant  in  heathenism,  can 
only  be  attributed  to  the  silent  influence  of  monotheism.  "Forgive 
your  neighbor  his  wrong-doing,  and  then  at  your  request  shall  your  own 
sins  be  released.  Does  a  mortal  cherish  anger  against  a  mortal  and  yet 
seek  healing  from  the  Lord  ?  Has  he  no  compassion  on  a  mortal  like 
himself  ?  and  does  he  petition  touching  his  own  sins  ?  "  —  Sirach,  28, 
2-4.  "Lend  to  your  neighbor  in  the  time  of  his  need,  and  [if  you 
have  borrowed]  repay  your  neighbor  punctually.  .  .  .  Many  treat  a  loan 
as  something  which  they  have  found.  .  .  .  Many  because  of  [such] 
wickedness  refuse  [to  lend],  .  .  .  but  be  forbearing  towards  one  in 
humble  circumstances,  .  .  .  [risk  to]  lose  silver  for  a  brother  and 
friend,  .  .  .  you  are  placing  your  treasure  according  to  commands  of  the 
Most  High,  and  it  shall  profit  you  more  than  the  [stipulated]  gold-piece." 
—  Sirach,  29,  2-ll. 


28  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  11. 

or  absence,  moreover,  of  rigidly  enforced  accountability, 
makes,  in  the  camps  and  workshops,  in  the  public  de- 
partments and  corporate  institutions  of  a  country,  the 
difference  between  order  and  disorder,  whether  of  a 
moral  or  business  kind.  The  sense  of  accountability  to 
an  all-seeing  eye,  felt  by  sincere  Jews,  for  wrong  done, 
or  good  left  undone,  must  have  strengthened  their  con- 
sciences, while  the  total,  or  almost  total,  absence  among 
heathens  of  any  such  sense  must  have  produced  its 
natural  results  upon  their  characters.  Further,  a  man 
will  devote  more  attention  to  an  earthly  home  which  he 
owns  than  to  one  which  he  occupies  but  for  a  year.  He 
will  strive  harder  for  a  personal  growth,  if  permanent, 
than  if  it  pass  away  with  this  life. 

History  justifies  the  foregoing  conclusions.  The  Jews 
were  indeed  absent  from  political  offices  or  occupations, 
and  therefore  scantily  mentioned  in  political  history.  The 
Eoman  aristocracy,  moreover,  largely  in  control  of  Italian 
literary  marts,  were  unlikely  to  perpetuate  favorable  men- 
tion of  religionists  whom  they  detested.  Yet  despite  these 
difficulties  reliable  evidence  has  been  left  us. 

The  literature  which  finds  circulation  in  a  community 
is  no  slight  test  of  its  character.  Jewish  writings  treat 
moral  laws,  as  if  their  binding  character  required  no  ar- 
gument.^^  This  is  not  the  tone  —  certainly  not  the  pre- 
vailing one  —  of  heathens,  unless  of  such  as  had  been 
influenced  by  monotheism.^'^ 

19  See  quoted  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  viii.,  lines  from  two  Jewish 
documents  which  liave  been  intermingled.  Moral  positions  are  there 
affirmed,  not  argued.  Writers  on  moral  topics  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  Apocrypha  share  largely  in  this  peculiarity. 

20  AwritersuchasDioChrysostom,  hereafter  to  be  mentioned  (Ch.  X. 
§  IV. ),  was  formed  more  by  monotheistic  than  by  heathen  influences.  Isoc- 
rates,  b.  c.  436  -  338  (who,  however,  had  lived  in  Chios,  and  was  likely 
therefore  to  have  come  in  contact  with  monotheism),  is  a  favorable  speci- 
men of  a  heathen  moralist.  In  the  Ad  Dcmonicum,  his  arguments  are 
seldom  longer  than  a  sentence.  Yet  they  appeal  to  various  sentiments 
rather  than  to  moral  sense,  and  among  the  positions  to  be  maintained,  one 
or  two  of  the  most  striking  are  almost  nullified  by  a  subsequent  one.  ' '  You 
will  be  ESPECIALLY  ESTEEMED,  if  you  do  not  do  what  you  would  find 


§  I.  4.]        CAUSES  OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.         29 

Jewish  phraseology  has,  what  secular  Greek  and  Lat- 
in, prior  to  monotheistic  influence,  lacked,  —  a  term  for 
conscience.^^  This  does  not  imply  that  heathens  were  de- 
void of  moral  sense,  but  it  does  indicate  that  conscience, 
or  moral  sense,  liad  no  recognized  standing  among  them, 
else  necessity  would  have  compelled  the  invention  of 
some  term  to  express  it. 

The  chief  moralists  among  heathens  were  the  Stoics, 
but  they,  as  will  appear  in  the  next  chapter,  were  but  an 
offshoot  from  that  monotheism  which  the  Jews  were 
spreading. 

Jews  and  their  converts  must  have  measured  them- 
selves by  a  higher  standard  of  morality  than  that  estab- 
lished among  heathens.  This  is  evinced  by  their  ideas  of 
practical  monotheism.^^ 

fault  with  in  others."  — Ad  Demon,  in  Grcec.  Majora,  1,  1.55,  "Exercise 
self-control  [touching]  all  those  things, — gain,  anger,  pleasure,  grief, — 
whereby  it  is  base  that  the  soul  should  be  mastered.  But  you  will  be 
such  [a  man]  ...  if,  when  angry,  you  behave' towards  offenders  as  you 
would  deem  proper  that  others  should  behave  towards  yourself  wlfen  you 
offend."  —  Ad  Demon,  in  Grcec.  3Iajora,  1,  156.  Subsequently  the  rule  is 
laid  down  :  "  Think  it  equally  disgraceful  to  be  outdone  by  enemies  in 
ill  offices,  or  by  friends  in  benefits." — Ad  Demon,  in  Grcec.  Majora,  1,157. 
This  same  rule  is  put  by  Xenophoii  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates  :  "  You 
have  known  that  it  is  a  manly  virtue  to  exceed  friends  in  kind  offices 
and  enemies  in  ill  ones." — Mcmorabil.  2,  6,  35. 

^^  The  Jews  used  crweidT^cns  in  the  sense  of  conscience.  In  secular 
Greek  it  meant  merely  consciousness  of  anything  whatever.  Passow  gives 
conscience  as  a  second  definition,  but  supports  it  only  by  reference  to 
quotations  in  Stobseus,  a  writer  as  late  as  the  tenth  century.  The  Lexicon 
of  Facciolati  and  Forcellini  gives  conscience  as  one  meaning  of  the  Latin 
conscienfia,  but  the  references  —  not  in  all  cases  satisfactory  —  do  not  sus- 
tain any  such  meaning  prior  to  the  date  of  monotheistic  influences  at  Eome. 

22  See  in  the  Appendix,  under  Note  B,  §  i.  Nos.  4,  5,  6,  the  meaning 
of  Practical  Monotheism.  The  same  can  be  fairly  inferred  from  advice 
of  Paul  :  "I  wish  .  .  .  that  the  women  adorn  themselves  in  neat  attire, 
modestly  and  discreetly  ;  not  with  braids,  or  gold,  or  pearls,  or  costly 
clothing,  but  —  as  becomes  women  who  advocate  Oeoa^^eiav  monotheism 
—  with  good  works."  —  1  Tim.  2,  s-io.  In  Proverbs,  8,  13,  likewise, 
we  have  it  stated :  "Monotheism  {<p6^oi  Kvplov)  hates  injustice."    And  by 


30  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  II. 

We  have  the  testimony  of  Cicero  —  whose  political 
prejudices  were  against  the  Jews  —  that  the  section  of 
the  republic  wherein  reason  and  industry  were  of  most 
account  was  one  in  which  we  know  Jewish  influence  to 
have  been  especially  strong.^^ 

Tacitus,  a  defamer  of  Judaism,  testifies  unintentionally 
to  the  fact,  that  in  Syria  —  where  the  heathen  religion  had 
been  rooted  out  by  Jewish  teaching  —  military  force  was 
superfluous  and  industry  prosperous.^* 

Pliny,  in  his  Panegyric,  while  stating  that  indecencies, 
customary  at  heathen  entertainments,  were  excluded  from 
Trajan's  table,  enables  us  to  perceive  that  Jewish  enter- 
tainments were  conducted  yet  more  strictly  than  the 
emperor's.^^ 

The  brutalizing   and   otherwise   demoralizing   public 
games  of  heathenism  were  regarded  by  Jews  and  recognized 

Sirach,  1, 14,  "Monotheism  {(po^e'iadaL  rbv  6ebv)  is  the  first  step  in  [moral] 
wisdom."  Compare  views  of  wisdom  inCh.  III.  note  25.  On  the  words 
translated  "monotheism,"  see  Appendix,  Note  B,  §  i.  Nos.  1  and  11. 

-^  Cicero  wrote  to  his  brother  Quintus,  who  was  propraetor  of  Asia, 
which  province  in  Roman  phraseology  meant  the  western  and  central 
parts  of  Asia  Minor.  In  this  somewhat  long  letter  he  says  :  "  You 
are  not  managing  that  portion  of  the  republic  in  which  chance  is  ruler, 

but  [that]  IN  WHICH  REASON  AND  DILIGENCE   EFFECT   MOST.   .   .   .   To  yOU 

is  given  the  utmost  peace,  the  utmost  tranquillity,  in  such  degree  as  might 
overcome  a  sleepy  governor  or  delight  a  vigilant  one. "  —  Cicero,  Ad  Fra- 
trem,  1,  i ;  Epist.  3,  529,  530. 

2*  Tacitus  tells  us  {An.  13,  35)  that  the  troops  in  Syria  had  even  for- 
gotten how  to  construct  a  camp,  and  {An.  15,  -iO)  that  troops  diminished 
in  numbers  and  broken  in  strength  by  hard  service  were  sent  thither  to 
recruit  ;  also  {Vit.  Agric.  40)  that  Syria  was  reserved  for  eminent  per- 
sons, a  sure  evidence  of  its  wealth. 

25  "  For  neither  [on  the  one  hand]  do  the  seclusive  peculiarities  of 
Foreign  Superstition,  nor  [on  the  other]  does  obscene  buffoonery  attend 
the  Prince's  table,  but  benignant  prompting,  refined  jests,  respect  for 
scholarship."— Pliny,  Panegyric,  49,  8.  The  term  Foreign  Superstition 
means  Judaism,  whether  it  does  or  does  not  include  Clu'istianity.  On  this 
subject  of  indecency  at  heathen  entertainments,  see  extract  from  Pliny 
in  Ch.  X.  note  61,  and  from  Tacitus,  in  the  same  chapter,  at  the  close 
of  note  59. 


§  I.  4.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH  INFLUENCE.  31 

by  heathens  as  essentially  anti- Jewish.^^  In  fact  after  the 
contest  became  sharp  between  Judaism  and  Heathenism 
at  Eome,  such  games  were  always  most  in  vogue,  when 
the  patrician  or  anti- Jewish  element  was  most  unrestricted. 
The  marriage  relation  must  have  been  better  observed 
among  Jews  than  among  heathens.  The  loose  views 
and  practice  of  the  latter  are  well  known.^^  At  Eome 
penal  enactments  existed  against  celibacy,  and  legal  priv- 
ileges for  parents  of  several  children.^^  Heathen  writers 
complain  of,  or  ridicule,  the  mutability  of  the  married 
state.2^  We  do  not  find  the  same  condition  of  things  de- 
picted among  Jews  by  their  own  moralists,  or  objected  to 


^^  According  to  Josephus,  when  Herod  the  Great,  in  the  time  of  Au- 
gustus, introduced  games  of  this  character  into  the  city  of  Caesarea,  the 
foreigners  were  delighted  with  them.  "But  to  the  natives  it  was  an  ob- 
vious overthrow  of  their  honored  customs.  For  it  appeared  i)lainly 
heathenish  to  throw  men  to  wild  beasts  as  an  amusement  for  a  theatre- 
ful  of  human  beings,  and  heathenish  to  exchange  the  divine  ordinances 
(^eo-yaoi;?)  for  foreign  usages." — Josephus,  Jntiq.  15,  8,  1.  Compare  on 
this  subject  in  Ch.  X.  notes  57,  58,  59,  60.  Quotations  in  the  last  two  of 
these  imply,-  or  accord  with,  the  view,  that  opposition  by  any  one  to  such 
games  excited  mistrust  of  his  fidelity  to  the  patrician  party  and  to  the 
established  religion. 

27  See  Smith,  Did.  of  Antiq.  pp.  604  -  606,  art.  Hctccrce. 

^  "  In  order  to  promote  marriage,  various  penalties  were  imposed  on 
.  .  .  celibacy.  ... 

"  By  the  Lex  Pcqna  Popiooza  a  candidate  who  had  several  children  was 
preferred  to  one  who  had  fewer.  .  .  .  Freedraen  who  had  a  certain  num- 
ber of  children  were  freed  .  .  .  and  lihertce  [freed  women]  who  had  four 
children  were  released  from  the  tutda  [guardianship]  of  their  patrons.  .  .  . 
Those  who  had  three  children  living  at  Rome,  [or]  four  in  Italy,  and  [or] 
five  in  the  provinces,  were  excused  from  the  office  of  tutor  or  curator.  .  .  . 
The  lex  also  imposed  penalties  on  orbi,  that  is-,  married  persons  who  had 
no  children." — Smith's  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  692. 

29  t<  -yyjii  ^j^y  woman  blush  at  divorce  when  some  who  are  illustrious, 
and  of  rank,  count  their  years,  not  by  the  [annual]  consulships,  but  by 
the  number  of  their  husbands."  —  Seneca,  Dc  Bcnefic.  3,  16,  2.  "  Thus 
she  has  eight  husbands  in  five  autumns." —  Juvenal,  Satire  6,  229,  230. 
"  It  is  not  more,  certainly,  than  thirty  days,  and  Thelesina  is  marrying 
her  tenth  husband." —  Martial,  Epigram  6,  7. 


32  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  II. 

them  by  their  Christian  or  heathen  opponents.  The  in- 
crease of  Jews,  moreover,  testifies  to  a  general  appreciation 
among  them  of  the  family  relation,  while,  in  Italy  at  least, 
a  perpetual  immigration,  without  increase,  of  heathen 
population  implies,  that  by  these  latter  it  was  not  ap- 
preciated. 

§  II.  Accessories  and  Hinclrances. 
1.  First,  certainly,  among  hindrances  to  the  spread  of 
Judaism  was,  if  we  can  trust  evidence,  the  Ceremonial 
Law,  which  must  here  be  understood  in  its  widest  sense 
as  including  all  supposed  commands  of  the  Deity  or 
c£  tradition,  concerning  observances  or  abstinences,  not 
calculated  to  subserve  moral  ends.  There  may  indeed 
have  been  weak-minded  heathens,  who,  in  proportion  as 
they  could  discern  no  object  for  an  observance,  imagined 
it  to  be  above  human  comprehension.  There  may,  too, 
have  been  dishonest  ones,  thankful  to  impose  on  their 
consciences  by  substituting  ceremonial  observance  instead 
of  right  living.  But  heatliens  of  the  better  and  thought- 
ful class  found  the  Ceremonial  Law,  or  some  portions  of 
it,  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  accepting  Judaism. 
Born  Jews  had  from  childhood  been  familiarized  to  this 
law,  so  that  they  questioned  less  concerning  it.  Some 
even  may  have  had  it  intertwined  with  early  associations 
from  which  they  would  have  regretted  to  part.^°  Sugges- 
tions as  to  its  origin  will  be  elsewhere  offered.^^ 

^  Habits,  essentially  unimportant,  may  by  association  become  almost 
indispensable  to  particular  frames  of  mind  or  feeling.  Two  elderly 
ladies  in  different  localities  of  Europe  told  me  that  they  did  not  disap- 
prove embroidery,  then  common  as  a  Sunday  occupation,  but,  owing  to 
early  formed  habits,  found  it  repugnant.  To  knitting  they  had  been 
accustomed,  and  in  one,  at  least,  of  these  two  cases,  a  removal  of  the 
knitting  would  unquestionably  have  interfered  with  Sunday  thoughts. 
When  the  needles  began  to  move  Sunday-quiet  settled  upon  the  counte- 
nance. A  special  locality  or  particular  strain  or  familiar  vei'se,  mean- 
ingless to  one  person,  may  unfailingly  awaken  in  another  some  train  of 
thought.  A  considerate  man  will  not  needlessly  destroy  a  neighbor's 
cherished  associations.  Yet,  if  these  are  of  a  kind  to  impede  moral 
sense,  their  propagation  must  be  counteracted. 

'1  See  Ch.  XIV.  notes  8-12,  and  the  text  prefixed  to  them. 


§  II.  2.]  ACCESSOKIES   AND   HINDEANCES.  33 

2.  Another  feature  had  become  blended  with  Judaism 
which  must  have  awakened,  or  nurtured,  antipathy  or 
mistrust  on  the  part  of  many  right-minded  heathens,  and 
by  wrong-minded  ones  woukl  be  used  as  a  weapon  against 
the  Jews.  The  offerings  collected  for  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem  were,  at  least  in  times  of  excitement,  so  enor- 
mous ^'^  as  inevitably  to  tempt  cupidity.  Unprincipled 
Jews  and  heathens  must  have  discovered  in  them  a 
means  of  filling  their  pockets,  so  that  no  small  share  of 
such  offerings  may  never  have  reached  Jerusalem.^^  'JI^q 
portion  which  arrived  there  cannot  bnt  have  rendered  the 
Temple  attractive  to  money-lovers,  and  an  unfavorable 
place,  in  many  respects,  for  studying  Jewish  morality.''^* 

'^■-  Cicero  states  {Pro  Flacco,  28)  that  gold  was  annually  cariied 
from  Italy  and  from  every  Roman  province  to  Jerusalem.  He  specifies 
that  under  the  directions  of  Flaccus  there  had  been  seized  of  this  gold 
at  Apamea,  in  Asia  Minoi',  one  hundred  pounds'  weight  (more  than 
$25,000)  ;  at  Laodicea,  twenty  pounds;  and  mentions  other  seizures 
without  the  amounts.  If  we  assume  what  is  scarcely  probable,  that  no 
portion  of  these  Temple  gifts  escaped  the  rapacity  of  Flaccus,  yet,  con- 
sidering tlie  comparative  scarcity  at  that  date  of  the  precious  metals, 
the  contributions  in  some  localities  must  have  been  enormous.  Pilate, 
according  to  Josephus  (AiUiq.  18,  3,  2),  found  sacred  money  at  Jerusa- 
lem in  quantity  sufficient  to  supply  the  city  with  water.  Whether  his 
aqueduct  was,  as  that  writer  states,  two  hundred  furlongs  (that  is  twenty- 
five  miles)  long  is  a  point  concerning  which  his  habitual  exaggeration 
may  lead  us  to  doubt.  The  same  historian  specifies  ( Wars,  5,  5,  3,  4,  (5) 
nine  gates,  a  wall  and  a  front  of  the  Temple  covered  with  silver  and 
gold,  and  mentions  other  lavish  expense  in  which  {Wars,  5,  5,  l)  "all 
the  sacred  treasures  replenished  by  tributes  sent  from  the  whole  world  to 
God  "  were  during  years  or  generations  used  up.  At  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  under  Nero  there  were  (see  Appendix,  Note  I.,  foot-note  23) 
seventeen  talents  in  the  Temple  treasury. 

2*  Josephus,  in  a  passage  {Antiq.  18,  3,  5)  to  which  we  must  here- 
after recur,  mentions  a  concerted  plan  by  four  men  for  imposing  on 
Fulvia,  a  lady  of  rank  at  Eome,  who  had  been  converted  to  Judaism. 
She  gave  them  purple  and  gold  for  the  Temple,  which  they  appropriated 
to  their  own  use.  Possibly  Paul  had  such  practices  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  {Romans,  2,  22),  ' '  You  abhorrer  of  idols,  are  you  a  Temple 
robber  ? " 

^  Our  Saviour's  words  to  the  Temple  traffickers  are  here  apposite :   "It 
2*  c 


34  JUDAIS:\I   AT   KOME.  [CH.  II. 

Even  where  no  intentional  dishonesty  was  surmised,  a 
heathen  niiQ;ht  become  indignant  at  exactions  in  the  name 
of  religion  from  women  of  his  family,^^  and  lose  pa- 
tience with  importunity  addressed  to  himself  by  such 
as  mistook  ofticious  and  objectless  activity  for  pious 
zeal. 

Non-ritualist  Jews,  if  consistent,  disapproved  these 
Temple  offerings  and  the  sacrifices  to  which  a  portion  of 
them  ministered.^^  In  their  own  synagogues,  heathen 
listeners  received  a  welcome.  From  the  Temple  they  were 
excluded.^''  Fortunately,  but  one  such  building  was  recog- 
nized by  Jews.  Even  within  it,  we  can  learn  from  the 
widow  and  her  two  mites  how  religious  feeling  and  self- 
sacrifice  may  dwell  in  proximity  to  avarice  and  fraud ; 
and  a  conversation  between  doctors  and  a  child  (Luke  2, 
46)  bears  evidence  tliat  religious  instruction  had  not 
been  wholly  displaced. 

Jerusalem  was  tainted  by  Temple  practices,  but  the 
character   of  its  inhabitants,^^  little  known  to  heathens 

is  written,  '  My  house  shall  be  a  house  of  prayer,'  but  you  have  made  it 
a  'robbers-cave.'"  —  Matthew,  21,  13. 

^^  Philo,  in  his  treatise  on  the  virtues  and   office   of  ambassadors, 
otherwise  called,  The  Embassy  to  Caius,  Ch.  40,  mentions  costly  gifts 
contributed  by  Julia,  the  daughter  of  Augustus. 
86  "  I  need  not  your  sacrifice  or  libation. 

Neither  polluted  odor  [of  burnt  offering]  nor  hateful  blood." 

Sib.  Or.  8,  390,  391. 

Compare  Sibyl.  Orac.  2,  S2,  4,  27-20,  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ii.  Part 
A,  and  §  viii.  The  expulsion  of  Temple  traffickers  by  Jesus  (Matt.  21, 
12  ;  John,  2,  l.>)  would  have  been  resisted,  unless  many  had  condemned 
their  doings.  Stephen,  the  lirst  Christian  martyr,  gave  expression, 
doubtless  (Acts,  7,  i^),  to  the  conviction  of  non-ritualists  :  "  The  Most 
High  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands."  At  this  point  his 
speech  was  evidently  interrupted.     The  opinion  cost  him  his  life. 

^  Inscriptions  on  its  pillars  (Josephus,  Wars,  5,  5,  2)  forbade  en- 
trance to  foreigners. 

^  Jerusalem,  ruled  by  an  ecclesiastical  aristocracy,  and  filled  with  a 
class  (see  Appendix,  Note  I.,  foot-notes  21,  23)  brought  thither  by  greed- 
iness, was  a  place  where  human  selfishness!,  with  its  unwritten  maxims, 
had  overridden  the  teachings  of  Judaism.  "Whoever  swears  by  the 
temple  may  disregard  his  oath,  but  whoever  swears  by  the  gold  of  the 


§  u.  4.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH   INFLUENCE.  35 

at  a  distance,  cannot  have  materially  interfered  with  the 
spread  of  Judaism. 

3.  The  cause  of  Judaism  at  Kome,  or  wherever  Roman 
rule  extended,  was  more  or  less  intermixed  with  that  of 
POPULAR  RIGHTS.  Two  reasons  existed  for  this.  The 
Senatorial  party  upheld  the  old  religion,  which  was  man- 
aged by  the  Senate.^^  It  also  advocated  established 
usages,  on  which  patrician  privileges  rested.**^  Judaism 
opposed  paganism,  and  taught  Iniman  rights.  An  alliance 
therefore  naturally  grew  up  between  it  and  the  popular 
party.  This  was  better  than  any  league  with  its  opposite, 
yet  its  advantages  were  counterbalanced,  at  least  in  the 
city  of  Eome,  by  not  a  few  disadvantages.  Any  alliance 
between  religion  and  a  political  party  not  only  exposes 
the  former  to  blame  for  short-comings  of  the  latter,  but 
subjects  the  teachings  of  religion  to  perversion.  Able 
politicians  and  fluent  orators  are  not,  as  a  rule,  the  best 
guides  in  matters  of  conscience. 

4,  The  RELATIVE  ANTIQUITY  of  Judaism  and  paganism 
was  one  of  the  points  debated  between  advocates  of  the 
two  religions,  and  also,  at  a  later  day,  between  Christians 
and  heathens.  More  importance  was  attached  to  this 
discussion,   because   the    aristocracy,   anxious    for  their 

temple,  must  keep  it."  —  Matthew,  23,  ic.  "Wlioever  swears  by 
the  altar  may  disregard  his  oath,  but  whoever  swears  by  the  gift  there- 
on must  keep  it."  — Matt.  23,  18.  If  a  man  give  to  the  temple  (Matt. 
15,  5 ;  Mark,  7,  li)  what  is  due  to  his  parents,  he  is  freed  from  aiding 
them  ;  a  convenient  maxim  certainly  for  "temple-robbers,"  and  disgust- 
ing, doubtless,  to  upright  Jews.  In  their  literature  we  find  quite  oppo- 
site maxims  :  "  Not  the  power  of  the  things  sworn  by,  but  the  punish- 
ment appropriate  to  sinners  follows  up  the  transgression  of  wrong-doers." 

—  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  14,  31.  "You  should  not  accustom  your 
mouth  to  an  oath."  —  Sirach,  23,  9. 

^^  "  The  gods  of  the  Eoman  state  were  the  gods  of  patricians  alone." 

—  Smith,  Did.  of  Antiq.  p.  176,  col.  2,  art.  Axigur.  Compare  in  Ch.  VII. 
note  35,  Cicero's  opinion  that  augury  was  kept  up  reipuhlicce  causa  for 
pohtical  reasons.  The  cause  of  "  the  republic  "  and  of  the  Senate  were, 
\n  patrician  language,  identical. 

*°  The  need  of  Dclatores,  or  Prosecutors  on  Slmrcs  (see  Appendix, 
Note  C)  was  largely  owing  to  patrician  privileges. 


36  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  II. 

political  privileges,  were  zealous  partisans  of  ancient 
usages.^^  This  controversy  ignored  the  relative  merits  of 
.the  two  systems,  and  assumed  that  most  re^'erence  was 
due  to  the  older.  Where  the  aristocracy  was  strongest, 
namely,  at  Eome,  this  dispute  seems  to  have  had  most 
rigor.  It  nurtured  fictitious  reverence  for  antiquity, 
Avhich,  at  one  period,  may  have  swayed  some  Gentiles 
into  acceptance  of  Judaism  rather  than  of  Christian- 
ity.42 

5.  The  monotheistic  teaching,  in  the  name  of  Sibylla, 
imposed  upon  the  Senate  in  B.  c.  76,  and  officially  ac- 
cepted by  that  body,  must  in  any  controversy  have 
proved  very  inconvenient  to  patrician  conservatives.^ 
■  Tliis  is  confirmed  by  their  efforts,  half  a  century  later,  to 
destroy  or  prevent  perusal  of  it,  and  of  subsequent  pro- 
ductions under  the  same  name.  Whether  these  lines, 
professedly  from  Erythra>,  gave  much  aid  to  the  progress 
of  monotheism,  is  a  different  question.  Sincere  men  of 
reasonable  ability  may,  in  the  then  existing  state  of 
opinion,  have  deemed  them  inspired.  Their  teaching 
was,  in  most  respects,  superior  to  what  could  be  found  in 
heathen  literature,  and  their  violent  suppression  would 
increase  the  number  of  their  advocates.  Yet  critical 
judgments  must  have  found  much  in  them  which  be- 
trayed their  real  origin.  The  mistrust  of  such  minds 
was  no  slight  weight  in  the  balance  against  Judaism,  and 
the  connection  of  its  cause  with  a  fraud  must  have  im- 
paired its  moral  influence  and  facilitated  misrepresenta- 
tion by  its  enemies.^^ 

*i  "You  know  the  verse  indited  by  a.  good  poet,  -vvluch  is  in  everyone's 
mouth  :  '  Eonie,  res  Romana,  stands  because  of  ohl-fashioned  customs 
and  men.'" — Marc  Antonine,  Letter  of,  in  the  HMorice  Aagustoe 
Scriptores,  p.  73,  Leipsic  edit.  1774  ;  Avid.  Cassius,  Ch.  5.  Cicero  {De 
Divinat.  2,  112,  cited  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  99)  supports,  by 
ancestral  custom,  the  idea  that  Sibylline  books  should  be  withdrawn  from 
the  people.  The  younger  Pliny  {Epist.  6,  34,  quoted  in  Ch.  X.  note 
108)  cannot  well  have  rested  on  aught  -save  such  custom. 

42  See  Juvenal,  Sntire  14,  iiG-lOfi,  cited  in  Ch.  X.  note  118. 

*^  For  account  of  this  fabrication,  see  Ajjpondix,  Note  A,  §  II. 

**  A  work  somewhat  analogous  in  object  to  the  Erytluffian  verses  was  the 


§  II.  6.] 


CAUSES   OF  JEWISH   INFLUENCE. 


6.  Another  impediment  to  the  moral  and  religious  in- 
fluence   of    Judaism    was,  that  some  who  professed    or 


so-called  Etruscan  Teaching,  unmentioned  in  history,  and,  therefore, 
probably  too  unimportant  for  enumeration  above.  It,  or  the  extant 
portion  of  it,  has  been  transmitted  us  in  the  Lexicon  of  Suidas.  The 
most  plausible  date  for  its  fabrication  would  be  duiing  the  conservative 
reaction  under  Claudius,  though  it  may  have  been  a  century  earlier.  The 
Emperor's  proposal  (Tac.  An.  11,  15,  hereafter  quoted  in  Ch.  VIII.  §  iv.) 
to  obtain  learned  slaves  from  Etruria,  might  prompt,  in  some  one  of  more 
ingenuity  than  principle,  the  idea  that  fabrication  of  Etruscan  learning 
was  not  exclusively  an  imperial  privilege,  and  that  it  might  be  made 
to  teach  Jewish  equally  as  heathen  ideas, 

Etruscan  Teaching.  Old  Testament. 

"  Etruria  and  Etrurians  also  "A  thousand  years,  in  thy  sight, 

called  Tuscans:    a  skilled    man       are    as  yesterday."- — Ps.  90,4. 


among  them  wrote  history.  He 
said  that  the  maker  of  all  things, 
God,  apportioned  twelve  thousand 
years  on  all  his  creations,  and  that 
these  corresponded  to  the  twelve, 
so-called  oHkols  tribes. 

"In  the  First  thousand  years  he 
made  the  heaven  and  the  earth. 
In  the  Second  he  made  the  firma- 
ment,  this  visible  one  which  he 
called  heaven. 

In  the  Third,  the  sea  and  all  the 
waters  in  the  earth. 


In  the  Fourth,  those  great  lights, 
the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the 
stars. 

In  the  Fifth,  all  life  of  winged 
and  creeping  animals,  and  four- 
footed  beasts  in  the  air  and  on  the 
earth  and  in  the  waters. 


[ ' '  One  day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a 
thousand  years." — 2  Pet.  3,8.] 


' '  God  created  the  heaven  and 
the  earth  .  .  .  the  First  day.  .  .  . 
God  made  the  firmament  .  .  .  the 
Second  day.  .  .  , 

God  said.  Let  the  waters  under 
the  heaven  be  gathered  together, 
.  .  .  the  eve  and  morn  were  the 
Third  day.   .   .  . 

God  made  two  great  lights,  .  .  . 
the  stars  also  .  .  ,  the  Fourtli 
day.    .   .   . 

God  created  ...  all  life  of  creep- 
ing things,  w'hich  the  waters 
brought  forth  .  .  .  and  every 
winged  fowl  .  .  .  the  Fifth  day. 
And  said.  Let  the  earth  bring 
forth  .  .  .  four-footed  beasts  and 
creeping  things.  [  This  fifth  day  is 
from  the  Septuagint.'] 


38  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  II. 

counterfeited  a  connection  with  it,  made  their  living  by 
Astrology  and  Soothsaying.*^  In  this  direction  they 
appear  to  have  had  a  rivalry  with  the  Egyptians,*^  which 

In  the  Sixth,  man.  God  created  man  .  .  .  the  Sixth 

day."  —  Genesis,  1,  1  -  27. 
It  seems,  therefore,  that  the  first  ["  This  (Gen.  2,  2)  means  that, 

six  thousand  years  passed  before  in  6,000  years,  the  Lord  God  will 

the   formation   of   man,    and    the  bring  all  things  to  a  conclusion." 

race  of  men  will  continue  for  the  — Barnabas,  ^^n's^.  15.] 
other  six   thousand  ;  so  that  the  ' '  The  [duration  of  the]  world  is 

whole  time  to  the  consummation  divided    into   twelve   parts." — 2 

will  be  twelve  thousand." — Sui-  Esdras,  14,  11,  Lat.  Vers. 
das.  Lex.  3,  51  o,  art.  Tupprjuia. 

45  "  Tliey  shall  intensely  suffer  [unsatisfied  desire],  who  for  gain 
Shall  basely  turn  soothsayers,  prolonging  [this]  evil  time, 
Who  clothing  themselves  with  the  thick  woolly  skins  of  sheep, 
Pretend  to  be  Hebi-ews,  a  race  whose  interpreters  they  are  not, 
But  prating  talkers,  gain-makers  amid  [our]  sufferings. 
They  change  their  course  of  life,  yet  shall  they  not  persuade  The  Just, 
Who  propitiate  the  all-illustrious  God  in  their  hearts." 

Sib.  Or.  7,  132-138. 

The  sheep-skin  clothing  of  false  prophets,  mentioned  also  in  Matthew, 
7,  1.5,  was  an  imitation  of  clothing  said  to  have  been  worn  (see  He- 
brews, 11,  37)  by  the  persecuted  prophets  of  earlier  days.  To  change 
their  course  of  life  means  to  heathenize  themselves. 

*^  Abraham,  who  it  must  be  remembered  was  a  Chaldiean,  "  communi- 
cated to  them  [the  Egyptians]  arithmetic,  and  delivered  to  them  the 
science  of  astronomy  ;  for  before  Abraham  came  into  Egypt  they  were  un- 
acquainted with  those  parts  of  learning,  for  that  science  came  from  the 
Chaldseans  into  Egypt." — Josephus,  Antiq.  1,  8,  2,  Whiston's  trans- 
lation. 

The  elder  Pliny,  30,  2,  1,  mentions  Moses  as,  many  years  after  Zoro- 
aster, tlie  originator  of  one  class  of  magicians. 

Josephus  states  concerning  himself  that  "in  the  interpretation  of 
dreams  he  was  competent  to  compare  what  had  been  ambiguously  stated 
by  the  Divinity,  and  was  not  unacquainted  with  the  predictions  of  the 
Sacred  Books,  being  himself  a  priest  and  the  descendant  of  priests."  — 
Wars,  3,  8,  3. 

Among  the  works  attributed  to  Porphyry,  tlie  contemporary  of  Origen, 
is  a  life  of  Pythagoras,  in  which  a  Diogenes  is  <[uoted  as  authority  for  the 
&-tatement,  that  "  Pythagoras  visited  the  Egyjjtians  and  Arabs  and  the 


§  II.  6.]  CAUSES   OF  JEWISH   INFLUENCE.  39 

must  have  lasted  till  the  time  of  Marc  Antonine.'*'^  Their 
opponents  at  Rome  speak  of  them  in  this  respect,  as  in 
others,  disparagingly,^^  yet  the  identification  of  the  terms 
Astrologer  and  Chaldtean  would  indicate  that  popular 
opinion  assigned  them  a  pre-eminence  in  this  direction. 
Degrading,  in   a   moral  point  of  view,  as  this  vocation 

Chaldaeans  and  the  Hebrews,  from  whom  also  he  thoroughly  learned  the 
interpretation  of  dreams." — Porphyrius,  Dc  vita  Pythagorce,  14,  Am- 
sterdam edit.  1707  (appended  to  lamblichus's  Life  of  Pythagoras). 

"Oiiginally  the  Assyrians, —  that  I  may  rest  for  authority  on  the 
earliest,  —  because  of  the  magnitude  of  the  plains  where  they  dwelt,  which 
opened  the  heavens  to  their  inspection  on  all  sides,  observed  the  transits 
and  motions  of  the  stars.  Taking  note  of  these  and  of  what  [in  after  ex- 
perience] was  signified  by  each,  they  transmitted  their  knowledge.  In 
that  nation  the  Chaldseans,  so  called,  not  from  their  profession,  but  from 
their  tribal  designation,  are  thought  by  long  observation  of  the  stars  to 
have  created  a  science,  through  which  they  can  predict  what  will  happen 
to  each  one  and  under  what  fate  he  was  born.  The  Egyptians  are  thought 
to  have  attained  the  same  art  during  a  lapse  of  time  amounting  to  in- 
numerable ages." —  Cicero,  Dc  Divinat.  1  (1),  2. 

"  See  Suidas,  Lexicon,  articles  Arnuphis  and  Julian.  The  shower 
which  relieved  the  army  of  Marc  Antonine  was  by  some  attributed  to  the 
agency  of  Julian  the  Chaldfean,  and  by  others  to  Arnuphis  the  Egyptian. 

*8  The  poet  Juvenal,  who  lived  in  the  latter  half  of  the  first  centurj^ 
tells  us,  "The  groves  and  shrines  of  the  sacred  fountain  [of  Capena]  are 
allotted  to  Jews,  whose  whole  furniture  is  a  basket  and  some  straw.  Every 
tree  is  required  to  pay  its  hire  to  the  people.  The  CamoeniE  are  ejected 
and  the  grove  is  a  beggar."  —  Satire  3,  lines  11-16.  Elsewhere,  after  rep- 
resenting the  Roman  wives  as  willing  to  do  and  believe  anything  which 
an  Egyptian  priest  may  dictate,  he  adds,  that  when  the  priest  is  gone  "  a 
furtive  [or  trembling]  Jewess,  who  has  left  her  basket  and  straw,  begs  in 
her  secret  [or  secret-loving]  ear,  '  She  is  an  interpretess  of  the  laws  of 
the  Jews,  and  a  high-priestess  of  some  tree,  and  a  faithful  medium  of 
communication  with  the  highest  Heaven.'  The  wife  fills  her  hand  more 
sparingly.  For  a  trifling  sum  a  Jew  will  sell  you  any  dreams  which  you 
may  wish.  Professing  himself  a  soothsayer  from  Armenia  or  Commagene, 
he  will,  after  examining  the  lungs  of  a  newly  killed  dove,  promise  you  a 
tender  lover,  or  the  large  inheritance  of  a  childless  rich  man.  He  inspects 
the  hearts  of  chickens,  and  the  entrails  of  a  pup ;  sometimes  also  of  a 
boy." — Satire,  6,  r)42-.'J52.  This  last  remark  will  not  diminish  our  esti- 
mate of  Roman  credulity,  or  of  patrician  misrepresentation. 


40  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  III. 

must  have  been,  it  was  one  which  Eome  assigned,  nnder 
the  name  of  Augury  or  Auspices,  to  her  chief  citizens, 
placing  them,  in  this  respect,  on  a  par  with  the  refuse  of 
Judaism. 

7.  If  the  Jews  were,  as  Josephus  claims  (see  Ch.  IV. 
note  6;  compare  Ch.  XIII.  notes  27-29),  the  mechanics 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  this  would  bring  them  largely  in 
contact  with  their  lieathen  neighbors,  and  give  to  those  of 
them  who  were  fitted  for  it  an  opportunity  of  making  a 
favorable  impression  by  their  skill,  industry,  and  fidelity. 
Any  such  qualities  as  command  respect  would  co-operate 
in  diffusing  their  religious  views.  In  fact,  Jewish  habits  of 
industry  must  have  been  partly  due  to  Jewish  religious 
views,  to  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  right  use  of  time. 

8.  A  negative  advantage  which  tlie  Jews  possessed  was, 
that  nowhere  outside  of  Judtea  had  tlieir  religion  exclusive 
control  of  state  power.  It  must  largely,  therefore,  have 
escaped  the  perversions  which  a  union  of  religious  and 
secular  authority  is  sure  to  entail.  The  limited  extent 
to  which  religious  and  secular  power  were  blended  in  the 
same  Jewish  hands  at  Alexandria  proved  unfavorable  to 
religious  sincerity.     See  Ch.  V.  §  viii.  and  Ch.  VIII.  §  in.  3. 


CHAPTER  III. 

JEWISH  INFLUENCE  ORIGINATES  THE  STOICS. 

§  I.    Ch^eek  Stoics. 

Allusion  lias  already  been  made  to  Jewish  influence  on 
Greek  culture,  a  subject  to  which  we  shall  return  in  Ch. 
XIII.  §§  I.  IV.  A  striking  evidence  of  it  is  the  body  of  Gen- 
tile moralists  whom  it  called  into  existence  ;  men  among 
the  most  intelligent  of  their  time  in  matters  of  jurispru- 
dence and  natural  science,  and  who,  in  spite  of  their  defects, 
have  deserved  and  received  the  esteem  of  subsequent  ages. 


§1.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   GREEK   STOICS.  41 

Three  centuries  or  more  before  the  Christian  era,  Ju- 
daism was  ah-eady  strong  enough  in  Egypt  and  Syria  to 
claim  political  attention  as  an  important  element  in  soci- 
ety.i  The  records  of  its  history  in  Asia  Minor  at  this 
date  are  scanty,  but  its  strength  there,  two  centuries  later,^ 
implies  that  it  must,  on  the  seaboard  at  least,  have 
commenced  about  as  early  and  made  nearly  or  quite  as 
much  progress  as  in  the  other  two  countries. 

Svibsequently  to  its  establishment  in  these  countries^ 
there  grew  up  among  heathens  in  Asia  Minor,  the  islands 
belonging  to  it,  and  in  Syria,  a  body  of  Greek  teachers,^ 
who  nominally  tsiught  monotheism.     Their  affinity  to  Ju- 

1  In  B.  c.  332,  when  Alexandria,  the  commercial  metvo^wlis  of  Egypt, 
was  founded,  it  was  laid  off  in  three  sections,  of  which  one  was  appor- 
tioned to  the  Jews  (Smith,  Did.  of  Gcog.  1,  97,  col.  1);  and  when 
Autioch,  the  capital  of  Syria,  was  founded  in  B.  c.  300,  equal  rights  of 
citizenship  were  given  (Smith,  Did.  of  Gcog.  1,  143,  col.  1)  to  Jews  as 
to  heathens. 

2  See,  in  Ch.  II.  note  3'2,  mention  of  contributions  from  Asia  Minor  to 
the  Jewish  Temple. 

^  In  Asia  Minor  and  its  islands  were  born :  at  Citium  in  Cyprus,  Zeno 
the  earlier  and  Persaeus  ;  at  Assos  in  Troas,  Cleanthes  ;  at  Soli  in  Cili- 
cia  (though  his  father  was  a  resident  of  Tarsus),  Chrysippus  and  one 
Athenodorus  ;  at  Tarsus,  Zeno  the  later,  one  Antipater,  two,  apparently 
named  Athenodorus,  and  in  this  city  Avas  the  residence  of  Archede- 
mus  ;  in  the  island  of  Chios,  Aristo  ;  in  the  island  of  Ehodes,  Pante- 
tius  ;  in  Hicra2]olis,  of  Phrygia,  Epictetus  ;  in  Nicomcdia,  of  Bithynia, 
AiTian. 

In  Syria,  Posidonius  was  born  at  Apamea,  though  his  residence,  in 
mature  life,  was  at  Ehodes.  One  of  the  two  Antipaters  was  born  at  Tyre. 
Diogenes,  surnamed  the  Babylonian,  was  born  at  Scleucia  on  the  Euphra- 
tes, adjacent  to  Syria  on  the  east.  A  later  Stoic,  named  Euphrates,  is 
said  by  one  writer  to  have  been  born  at  Tyre,  and  by  another  at  Byzan- 
tium. 

The  Greek  population  of  S\'ria  must  have  been  much  less  numerous 
than  that  of  Asia  Minor.  Its  Syrian  population,  if  inclined  to  monotheism, 
may  have  united  with  the  Jews,  or,  if  such  men  became  Stoics,  their 
language  may  have  debarred  Romans  from  acquaintance  with  their  views. 
Chseremon,  librarian  at  Alexandria  in  the  first  half  of  the  first  century, 
was  a  Stoic.  Where  he  originated  seems  unknown.  The  foregoing  list 
comprises  all  prominent  Greek  Stoics  and  some  additional  ones. 


42  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  III. 

daism  was  such,  that  a  Pharisee  coiikl  use  them  to  ilhis- 
trate  the  views  of  his  sect ;  a  heathen  could  ridicule  them 
as  believing  in  a  circumcised  God,  and  among  their  Eoman 
imitators  we  find  the  belief  in  a  King  from  the  East/  while 
their  views  were  so  antagonistic  to  heathen  ones  as  to  be 
called  Paradoxes.  Three  of  these  men,^  Zeno,  Cleanthes, 
and  Chrysippus,  emigrated  at  different  times  to  Athens, 
where  the  first  mentioned  taught  in  a  Stoa  or  porch. 
This  caused  advocates  of  that  system  in  Europe,  and  after- 
wards in  Asia,  to  be  called  Stoics,  or  Disciples  of  the 
Porch.  Other  advocates  of  the  system  came  at  still  later 
dates  to  Athens. 

In  turning  to  the  views  and  phraseology  of  the  Stoics 
they  need,  as  an  aid  to  scrutiny,  a  comparison  seriatim 
with  those  of  the  Jews.  But,  unless  on  points  where  a 
common  origin  might  be  surmised,  the  evidence  of  Stoi- 
cism being  an  imitation  of  Judaism,  increases  in,  at  least, 
geometrical  ratio  with  each  new  instance  of  its  having 
borrowed  therefrom. 

The  Jews  believed  in  one  Supreme  Being  who  created 
and  controlled  the  universe.     Tlie  Stoics  professed  a  like 

*  "At  nineteen  years  of  age  I  entered  yx]}on  citizenship,  adhering  to  the 
sect  of  Pharisees,  which  is  similar  to  the  one  called,  among  Greeks,  Stoic." 
—  Josephus,  Life,  §  2.  "  The  God  of  the  Stoics  is  round  (as  Varro  says), 
devoid  of  head,  and  circumcised." — De  Morte  Claudii  Ludus,  8; 
Seneca,  0pp.  Philos.  2,  280.  This  was  written  about  A.  D.  54,  though 
not  by  Seneca,  who  would  not  have  ridiculed  his  own  sect. 

See  also  in  Note  A,  footnote  96,  the  belief  of  Cicero's  brother  in  a  king 
from  the  East.  On  a  spherical  God  see  Indirect  Testimony,  Ch.  11.  note  17. 

6  Zeno  was  the  earliest  who  made  these  views  known  in  Europe,  and 
has  been  conmionly  regarded  as  founder  of  the  system.  According  to 
Smith's  Biog.  Diet.  {a.rt.  Cleanthes),  he  died  in  b.  c.  263,  but  according 
to  the  same  work,  3,  1314,  col.  1,  and  to  Diogenes  Laertius  (.^ow,  8)  he 
was  active  in  the  one  hundred  and  thirtictli  Olympiad,  as  late,  therefore, 
as  B.  c.  191.  Cleanthes  was  born,  according  to  Smith's  Biog.  Diet.  (art. 
Cleantlies)  about  B.  c.  300.  Chrysippus,  according  to  the  same  work 
(art.  Clirysippits),  was  born  in  B.  c.  280,  but  according  to  Diogenes  Laer- 
tius,  {Chrijsipjms,  7),  he  died  in  the  one  hundred  and  forty-third  Olym- 
piad, as  late,  therefore,  as  B.  c.  139,  after  living  seventy-three  years. 
This  would  place  his  birth  about  B.  c.  212  or  b.  c.  213. 


§1.]  INFLUENCE   ON  THE   GKEEK   STOICS.  43 

belief,  though  some  of  them  explained  it  pantheisti- 
cally.^ 

TJie  Jews  believed  that  tlie  heathen  deities  were 
doomed  to  perish.     So  did  the  Stoics^ 

The  Jews  taught  that  lieathen  temples  should  be 
avoided.     The  Stoics  also  decried  temples.^ 

The  Jews  maintained  that  efforts  to  represent  the  Di- 
vine Nature  by  images  were  absurd.^  So  did  the  Stoics,^^ 
differing  therein  from  other  heathens.  Such  Greeks 
and  Romans  as  believed  in  any  gods  seem  to  have  attrib- 
uted to  them  a  human  form.^i 

^  "In  physics  they  (the  Stoics)  inclined  to  pantheism."  —  New 
Am.  Cyclopaedia,  art.  Stoics.  Compare  extracts  from  Seneca  in  note 
61  of  this  chapter. 

■^  "  We  know  tliat  the  Stoics,  .  .  .  holding  to  one  immortal  and  inde- 
structible God,  think  that  the  others  have  been  born,  and  will  perish." 
—  Lamprias,  De  Orac.  Defect,  19  ;  Plutarch's  Works,  7,  654.  See  also 
close  of  citation  in  note  18. 

*  "  Blessed  among  men  shall  they  on  earth  be  .  .  .  who  reject  all 
temples  which  they  see."  —  Sib.  Or.  4,  24 -27.  "Men  of  Athens  .  .  . 
God  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands."  —  Acts,  17,  22  -  24. 
Compare  Acts,  7,  4S,  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  36.  "It  is  a  dogma  of 
Zeno  NOT  TO  build  temples  of  the  gods,  for  a  temple  has  little  worth  and 
is  not  holy."  —  Plutarch,  dc  Stoic.  Rcpwjnant.  6,  Oj^ip.  10,  280,  edit. 
Reiske.  "Zeno,  founder  of  the  Stoic  sect,  in  his  book  on  Civil  Polity, 
says  that  temples  and  images  should  not  be  made,  for  that  nothing 
artificial  was  worthy  of  the  gods,  [possibly  Clement  substituted  twv  OeQv, 
of  the  gods,  for  roD  deiov,  of  the  divine  nature],  and  he  did  not  fear  to 
write  these  views  in  the  following  words  :  '  The  building  of  temples  is 
needless,  for  a  temple  has  little  worth,  and  we  should  not  deem  anything 
holy  [in  the  sense  of  liable  to  2wllution  by  acts  devoid  of  immorality. 
Compare  George  Campbell,  Disscrtat.  6,  Part  4],  for  that  no  [mere]  work 
of  builders  and  mechanics  was  of  great  worth  and  holy.'"  —  Clem. 
Alex.  Strom.  5,  77. 

9  "No  man  can  make  a  god  like  to  himself."— Wisd.  of  Sol.  15, 10. 
"  We  should  not  think  the  Divine  Nature  like  to  gold  or  silver  or 
stone."  —  Acts,  17,  29. 

1°  "Not  from  gold,  not  from  silver  ;  from  this  material  no  image  can 
be  devised  resembling  God."  —Seneca,  Epist.  31,  10. 

"  "Concerning  the  form  [of  the  gods]  partly  nature  admonishes, 
partljr  reason  teaches  us  ;  for  we  all  of  every  nation  have    naturalhj  no 


44  JUDAISM   AT   HOME.  [CII.  III. 

Jews,  excepting  Sadducees,  taiiglit  a  resurrection.  The 
Stoics  did  the  sanie.^^ 

Jews  taught  a  heavenly  city.  The  Stoics  imitated  their 
phraseology.-^^ 

The  Jews,  at  least  in  Asia  Minor,  taught,  though  at 
how  early  a  date  cannot  easily  he  determined,  a  future 
conflagration  of  the  world,^"^  which  was  to  inaugurate  a 

other  form  for  the  gods  than  the  human  one.  For  what  other  form  ever 
occurs  to  a  man,  either  awake  or  asleep.  .  .  .  Reason  declares  the  same, 
for  since  it  seems  appropriate  that  the  most  excellent  nature  [namely, 
that  of  the  gods],  either  because  it  is  blessed  or  because  it  is  perpetual, 
should  also  be  the  most  beautiful.  .  .  .  What  figure,  what  appearance, 
can  be  more  beautiful  than  the  human.  .  .  .  Nor  does  reason  exi.st 
save  in  the  human  figure.  We  must  confess  that  the  gods  are  in  hu- 
man FORM."  —  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Bcorum,  1  (IS),  46-48. 

^'^  Clement  of  Alexandria  mentions  the  Conflagration  "at  which 
[time]  (tlie  Stoics)  atiirin  tliat  each  individual  will  rise  again."  —  Strom. 
5,9.  Compare  Strom.  5,106.  "Chrysippus,  .  .  .  speaking  concern- 
ing the  renovation  of  the  world,  introduces  the  following  :  .  .  .  '  It  is 
manifest  that  nothing  is  impossible  [with  God  ?],  and  that  we,  after  death, 
will  again,  after  a  lapse  of  time,  be  placed  in  the  same  axvt^o-  [hodily] 
form  where  we  now  are.'"  —  liSLCtant.  Div.  Inst.  7,23.  Stoics  "con- 
fess a  re-embodiment  of  .  .  .  souls  .  .  .  and  that  body  does  not  commin- 
gle with  body,  but  that  there  will  be  a  resurrection."  — Philosophum. 
1,  21.  See  also  Josejihus,  cited  in  note  4.  The  non-commingling  of 
bodies  is  perhaps,  thougli  not  certainly,  that  which  Athenagoras  upheld 
{De  Resurrect,  cc.  6,  7),  that  if  a  human  body  be  devoured  by  a  beast  the 
jiarticles  essential  to  its  resurrection  are  not  amalgamateil  with,  but 
eliminated  from,  the  beast. 

A  fair  inference  from  Acts  24,  15,  is  that  some  .Tews  restricted  any 
resurrection  to  the  just.  Some  must  have  held  (Kev.  20,  14)  that  the 
wicked  existed  only  until  the  Renovation.  Among  Stoics,  Cleanthes 
maintained  "that  all  souls  endure  till  the  conflagration,  but  Cliry- 
sippus,  that  those  only  of  the  wise  [i.  e.  just]."  —  Diog.  Laert. 
Zeno,  84.     Compare  Tatian,  Or  at.  6  ;  also  Dan.  12,  2. 

13  "Tlie  Stoics  call  heaven,  peculiarly,  a  city."  —  Clem.  Alex.  Strom. 
4,  171,  Opj>.  (512.  In  Greek  the  term  -koKlv  for  city,  and  irbXav  for  heaven, 
dilfer  by  but  one  letter. 

1*  "These  (the  Pharisees)  .  .  .  confess  ...  a  future  judgment  and 
CONFLAOUATION."  —  Pliilosoplium.  9,  28,  p.  306,  edit.  Miller.  See, 
quoted  in  A^jpendix,  Note  L>,  the  book  of  Enoch,  1,  G,  with  which *com- 


§1.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   GREEK   STOICS.  45 

new  era.  The  Stoics  also  taught  such  a  conflagration, 
and  that  a  new  era  would  be  inaugurated  by  it.^^ 

The  Jews  fixed  the  resurrection,  or  the  final  one,  and 
the.  destruction  of  heathen  deities,  at  the  date  of  this 
conflagration.     So  did  the  Stoics. ^^ 

Indirect  evidence  renders  probable  that  some  Jews 
identified   God   and   other   spiritual  natures  with  fire.^" 

pare  the  extract  from  Clement  of  Alexandria,  already  given  in  note  12. 
These  views  may  Irave  been  prompted  by  such  passages  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  the  following  :  "  A  fire  .  .  .  shall  consmiie  the  earth  with  her 
increase,  and  set  on  fire  the  foundations  of  the  mountains."  —  Deut. 
32,  22.  "Our  God  shall  come  ...  a  fire  shall  devour  before  him." 
—  Ps.  50,3.  Compare  Ps.  97,3.  "The  hills  melt  and  the  earth  is 
burned  at  his  presence,  yea,  the  world  and  all  that  dwell  therein."  — 
Nahum.  1,  5.  "My  messenger  ...  is  like  a  refiner's  fire." — Mai. 
3,  ],  ■-'.  "The  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  as  an  oven." — Mai.  4,  1. 
Compare  Is.  9,  19 ;    10,  17. 

1*  "The  Stoics  .  .  .  expect  a  conflagration  and  purification  of  this 
world ;  some  a  total,  others  a  partial  one." —  Philosoplium.  1, 21,  pp.  26, 
27.  "  The  Stoic  philosophers  are  of  opinion  that  the  whole  universe  shall 
be  transformed  (or  cast)  into  fire,  as  into  a  seed,  and  that  therefrom  (or 
thereby)  it  will  proceed  (or  be  completed)  in  its  adornment  as  it  origi- 
nally was." — Eusebius,  Proejiaratio,  15,  is,  quoted  apparently  from 
Kunienius.  Compare  the  similar  view  of  Heraclitus  in  Note  K,  §  ill. 
Empedocles,  to  whom  a  like  view  is  attributed,  may  have  travelled  in 
Jewish  countries.     See  also  Indirect  Testimony,  last  citation  on  p.  181. 

^^  Some  Jews  seem  to  have  taught  two  resurrections,  one  of  the  just, 
at  the  beginning  of  millennium,  and  another  of  the  unjust,  at  its  close. 
Those  who  held  this  twofold  view  must,  as  we  may  infer  from  their  imi- 
tators  among  early  Christians,  have  connected  the  judgment  of  men  and 
of  demons,  or  heathen  deities,  with  the  final  resurrection.  Those  who 
held  to  but  one  resurrection,  connected,  doubtless,  the  judgment  with 
that  one.     The  judgment  and  conflagration  were  deemed  concomitant. 

The  views  of  Stoics  mil  be  found  in  notes  12,  18,  and  50. 

^7  Certain  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  could  be  misinterpreted  as 
implying  that  the  substance  of  God  was  fire,  and  certain  writers  or 
teachers  in  the  first  or  second  centuries,  whose  views  of  God  and  angels 
were  chiefly  borrowed  from  Jewish  representations,  treat  fire  as  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Deity  or  of  his  angels.  In  Deuteronomy,  4,  24,  God  is 
called  a  "  consuming  fire  "  ;  and  in  Exodus,  3,  J,  "the  angel  of  the 
Lord"  (or  in  Exodus,  3,4,    "the  Lord")  is  represented  as  apjieariiig 


46  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  III. 

The    stoics,  in  speaking  of  their  God,  did,   as   is   well 
known,  the  same.^^ 

Jewish  teaching  was  prominently  moral  and  practical. 

"in  a  flame  of  fire."     The  Writer  to  the  Hebrews,  using  the 

Hebrew  parallelism,  speaks  of  God, 

"Who  makes  the  spirits  his  messengers, 

The  FLAME  OF  FIRE  his  servants." 

Heb.  1,  7. 

The  word  for  messenger  and  for  angel  is  identical  in  the  original,  and  a 
comparison  of  verses  13,  14,  in  the  same  chapter,  shows  that  the  second 
line  is  used  as  an  iteration  of  the  first.  The  passage  is  a  quotation,  with, 
perhaps,  alteration  of  meaning  from  Psalm  104,  4  (LXX.  103,  4).  The 
author  of  the  Philosophumena  saj-s  (10,33;  p.  335,  edit.  Miller),  "I 
confess  that  the  angels  are  fire." 

Elsewhere  in  that  work,  a  heading  is  devoted  to  the  Docetse,  that 
is,  to  the  class  of  Gnostics  who  regarded  Christ  as  having  only  an  appar- 
ent, not  a  real,  body.  They  are  represented  as  stating,  concerning  the 
God  who  made  heaven  and  earth  :  "  Moses  says  that  this  irvpivov  debv, 
fiery  God  [i.  c.  this  God  whose  substance  is  fire],  spoke  from  the  bush." 
Philosophumena,  p.  265,  edit.  Miller.  The  author  of  the  Clementine 
Homilies,  in  a  passage  the  details  of  which  must  have  been  partly 
imitated  from  the  Book  of  Enoch,  sjieaks  of  the  angels  (Hom.  8,  13),  as 
having,  by  their  fall,  lost  or  diminished  their  constituent  element  of 
fire,  ra  e/c  Tri'pos  Tpairevra  iJ.i\ri,  and  treats  their  children,  the  giants 
(Hom.  8,  18),  as  "mongrel  in  race  [commingled],  fire  [i.  e.  spirit],  of 
angels  and  soul  of  women."  The  word  for  soul  is  here  its  synonyme 
alfxa,  concerning  which  see  Underworld  Mission,  pp.  91,  92,  (87,  88). 

^*  Chrysijipus  "  thinks  that  no  one  of  the  gods  except  Fire  is  im- 
perishable, but  that  all  [others]  have  alike  been  born  and  will  [there- 
fore?] perish.  These  positions  are,  to  express  it  in  one  word,  every- 
where alleged  by  him." — Plutarch,  Dc  Stoic.  Rcjmgnant.  c.  38;  {Op}}.  10, 
346).  The  Stoics  had  several  names  for  this  sole  imperishable,  impersonal 
god.  One  of  these  names  was  Jupiter,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following 
extract  :  "Chrysippus  and  Cleanthes  having,  to  express*  it  in  one  word, 
included  heaven,  earth,  air,  and  sea  in  the  category  of  gods,  have  left  no 
one  of  these  imperishable,  or  everlasting,  except  Jupiter  [by  transforma- 
tion], into  whom  they  use  up  all  the  others.  .  .  .  They  say  expressly 
that  all  the  gods  have  been  born  and  will  perish  by  fire,  being  melted, 
according  to  them,  as  if  of  wax  or  tin."  —  Plutarch,  Adv.  Stoic,  c.  31  ; 
Op}}.  10,  431,  432.  On  this  use  of  the  word  Japitcr  some  comments  will 
be  added  in  the  course  of  the  present  section. 

The  iSabatheans  south  of  Judsea,  if  we  can  trust  Strabo  {Geog.  16,  4, 


§  I.]  INFLUENCE    ON   THE   GEEEK   STOICS.  47 

So  was  that  of  the  Stoics,  which,  iu  this  respect,  formed  a 
marked  contrast  with  such  other  heathen  literature  as 
was  not  borrowed  from  themselves.^^ 

Jews  taught  a  Trpovoia,  a  providing  and  superintending 
care  on  tlie  part  of  the  Deity  which  nothing  in  tlie  uni- 
verse escaped.2*^  The  same  idea,  expressed  by  the  same 
term,  was  a  favorite  with  Stoics.^^ 

The  belief  in  a  Moral  Euler  of  the  universe,  omnipresent 
and  on  whom  everything  depended,  caused  in  the  Jewish 
mind  questions  concerning  the  origin  of  o.yil'^'^  especially 
of  moral  evil.  If  God  were  not  its  author,  he  could  not 
be  author  of  all  things,  nor  apparently  even  their  con- 
troller.    Yet  to  deem  him  its  author  was  to  shock  moral 

26,  p.  784  ;  or  edit.  Meineke,  p.  1094,  lines  10  - 12),  worshipped  the  sun, 
and  would  seem  therefore  to  have  shared  the  belief  that  the  essence  of 
the  Divine  Nature  was  fire.  So,  as  is  well  known,  did  the  Guebres  of 
Persia.  The  Nabatheans,  Guebres,  and  Stoics  were  all  three  in  local 
contact  with  the  Jews,  but  not  with  each  other.  It  is  more  probable, 
therefore,  that  their  belief  spread,  with  or  without  corruption,  from  the 
Jews  to  themselves,  than  that  it  spread  from  one  of  themselves  to  nations 
and  bodies  Avho  had  little  connection  with  its  place  of  origin. 

1^  Cicero,  in  his  De  Officiis,  looked  to  Stoic  literature  as  his  store- 
house. The  article  on  Cicero  in  Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  1,  731,  col.  2, 
after  enumerating  a  list  of  Stoic  writers  from  whom  he  borrowed,  adds  : 
"  Notmthstanding  the  express  declaration  of  Cicero  to  the  contrary,  we 
cannot,  from  internal  evidence,  avoid  the  conclusion,  that  the  Greek 
authorities  have,  in  not  a  few  passages,  been  translated  verbatim." 

20  "  Thy  providence  {irpbvoia),  0  Father,  pilots  constantly." — Wisd.  of 
Sol.  14,  3.  Elsewhere  the  same  writer  speaks  of  the  Egyptians  when 
darkness  covered  their  land:  "  These  [would-be]  escapers  from  eternal 
superintending  care  {irpbvoia)  lay  shut  up  under  their  roofs,  chained  by 
darkness  and  shackled  by  a  long  night." —  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  17,  -2. 

^  One  book  of  Chrysippus  was,  according  to  Plutarch  {Dc  Stoic.  Repug- 
nant, e.  39;  Ojip.  10,  348),  entitled  irepi  irpovolas,  "Concerning  Provi- 
dence." Cicero  {Dc  Nat.  Deorum,  1,  S  or  18)  represents  one  of  his  speakers 
as  ridiculing  the  Trpovoia,  or  Providence  of  the  Stoics.  Compare,  in  this 
chapter,  note  62,  line  3,  and  conclusion  of  note  75  :  also  Plutarch,  De 
Stoic.  Repugnant,  cc.  9,  21,  30,  31  (?),  34,  38  {0pp.  10,  284,  310,  320,  334, 
33.5  (?),  340,  .342,  345)  ;  and  Adv.  Stoic,  cc.  2,  14,  36  {0pp.  10, 373,  396,  440). 

^  "  Shall  there  be  evil  upon  the  city  and  Jehovah  not  have  done  it  ? " 
Amos,  3,  6,  Noyes's  trans. 


48  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  III. 

sense.^^  The  Stoics^  in  borrowing  from  the  Jews  their 
views  of  God,  received  also  this  question.^*  Other  heath- 
ens, who  regarded  their  deities  as  limited  beings  capable 
of  indifference,  or  malevolence  towards  men,  or  who  disbe- 
lieved their  existence,  found  in  human  suffering  and  sin 
no  ground  for  such  a  query. 

The  Jews  used  the  term  wisdom  almost  as  a  technical 
one  to  denote  moral  intelligence.^^     The  same  expression 

^^  Exceptional  Jews  attribute  tliis  prompting  of  moral  evil  to  God, 
others  to  Satan,  others  to  fallen  angels  or  to  a  man's  own  heart.  "  The 
anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  Israel,  and  he  moved  David  against 
them  to  say,  '  Go  number  Israel.'  " — 2  Sam.  24,  ].  "Satan  stood  irp 
against  Israel  and  provoked  David  to  number  Israel." — 1  Chron.  21,  1. 

The  Wisdom  of  Sirach  tells  us  :  "You  should  not  say  that  '  because 
of  the  Lord  [planning  it]  I  fell  away.'  For  will  you  not  be  doing  what  he 
hates  1  You  should  not  say  that  he  misled  me.  .  .  .  He  placed  before  you 
fire  and  water.  You  stretch  out  your  hand  to  which  you  wish.  .  .  .  He 
commanded  no  one  to  heathenize  and  has  licensed  no  one  to  sin."  —  Sirach, 
15, 11-20.  The  utterance  of  James  was  not  over  a  newly  arisen  question  : 
"  Let  no  one,  Avhen  tempted,  saj',  'I  am  tempted  of  God.'  For  God 
feels  no  temptation  towards  wrong,  nor  does  he  tempt  any  one.  But  the 
temptation  of  each  one  consists  in  his  being  drawn  aside  and  entrapped 
by  his  own  inclinations." — James,  1,  13,  14.  In  the  Appendix,  Note  D,_ 
will  be  found  a  view  from  the  Jewish  Book  of  Enoch,  tliat  evil  was  caused 
by  unfaithful  angels  ;  and  in  foot-note  9  of  the  same,  some  other  writer's 
indignant  comment  upon  the  supposition. 

24  "0  Divine  Being,  NO  action  takes  place  without  you  on  earth 

Nor  in  the  divine  ethereal  heaven,  nor  on  the  sea. 
Except  what  the  wicked  accomplish  by  their  senselessness. 
You  ornament  what  is  rude,  and  imlovely  things  are  lovely  to  you  ; 
For  thus  you  liave  fitted  all  tilings  into  a  whole,  good  tilings  into  evil 
ones." 

Cleanthes,  Hymn,  linos  15-19. 

Compare  rintarcli.  Adv.  Stoic,  quoted  in  Ch,  I.  note  3. 

The  accounts  transmitted  to  us  concerning  Cleanthes  as  slow  of  mind, 
do  not  accord  with  the  diction  of  this  hymn  and  of  extracts  in  Clement 
of  Alexandria.  Perhaps  some  more  poetic  mind  may  have  embodied  into 
it  the  ideas,  and  appended  to  it  the  name,  of  Cleanthes,  or  our  accounts 
of  him  may  be  incorrect. 

25  "  The  fear  of  the  Lord,  that  is  wisdom  and  to  depart  from  evil  is 
understanding. "  —  Job,  28,  28.    "  Tlie  mouth  of  the  just  bringeth  forth 


§1.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   GREEK   STOICS.  49 

became  prominent  among  the  Stoics,  but  not  among  other 
heathens  in  the  same  sense.''^^ 

In  Jewish  phraseology  moral  delinquency  is  not  infre- 

wisDOM."  —  Proverbs,  10,  31.  "Incline  thine  ear  unto  wisdom.  .  .  , 
Then  shalt  thou  lunU'i'stand  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  For  the  Lord  giveth 
wisdom." — Proverbs,  2,  2-6.  "Wisdom  crieth  .  .  .  they  .  .  .  did  not 
choose  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  They  would  none  of  my  counsel  ;  they  de- 
spised all  my  reproof."  —  Proverbs,  1,  20-30.  "Doth  not  wisdom 
cry  .  .  .  my  mouth  shall  speak  truth,  and  wickedness  is  an  abomination  to 
my  lips.  All  the  words  of  my  mouth  are  in  righteousness."  —  Prov- 
erbs, 8,  !  -S.  Compare  Sirach,  1, 14,  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  22.  In  Prov- 
erbs, 8,  22-31,  wisdom  is  vividly  personified  as  a  companion  of  the  Deity. 
26  «i  This,  I  know,  is  plain  to  you,  Lucilius,  that  no  one  can  live  hap- 
pily, nor  even  tolerably,  without  applying  himself  to  wisdom  and  that 
a  happy  life  is  effected  by  perfect,  a  tolerable  one  by  even  incipient,  wis- 
dom." —  Seneca,  Epist.  16, 1. 

"Some  have  deemed  the  question  proper  concerning  liberal  studies 
whether  they  would  make  a  man  good.  They  do  not  even  promise,  nor 
aim  at,  a  knowledge  of  this."  —  Seneca,  EpM.  88,  2. 

Plutarch  speaks  of  the  Stoic  wise  man  as  transferred,  in  Stoic  opinion, 
"from  extreme  wickedness  to  extreme  virtue." — Adv.  Stoic,  c.  8  (Oj)]). 
10,  3S2). 

Cicero  quotes  Cleanthes  and  Chrysippus  as  maintaining  that  "only 
the  wise  man  is  king,  dictator  [fxivapxos  "i],  and  rich."  —  Be  Fin.  4  (3),  7. 
He  also  quotes  Stoic  Paradoxes,  of  which  the  fifth  reads  :  "  Only  the 
[morally]  wise  man  is  free,  and  every  foolish  man  is  a  slave. "  —  O})}^.  Philos. 
1,  520;  and  the  sixth,  "Only  the  [morally]  wise  man  is  rich."  —  0pp. 
Philos.  1,  533.  In  arguing  for  a  preceding  paradox  from  a  Stoic's  point 
of  view,  he  treats  "the  Wiseman's  mind"  as  "surrounded  by  all  the 
virtues  as  by  walls."  — 0pp.  Philos.  1,  511. 

Seneca,  sometimes  at  least,  uses  philosophy,  not  in  its  heathen  sense, 
but  as  meaning  love  of  vioral  wisdom.  See  Epist.  89,  4,  5  ;  90,  1  ;  95, 
12,  13.  Cicero,  when  quoting  or  defending  Stoic  ideas,  uses  it  in  the  same 
way.  See  his  De.  Offic.  2  (2),  5  ;  De  Leg.  1  (22),  58.  Seneca,  in  his 
Epist.  89,  7,  defines  it  as  a  "  Zeal  for  Virtue." 

The  grandiloquent  definition  of  wisdom  as  "  the  knowledge  of  things 
divine  and  human,  and  of  the  causes  by  which  these  are  controlled  "—  see 
Plutarch,  De  Plac.  Philos.  Book  1,  Preface  {0pp.  9,  468) ;  Seneca, 
Epist.  89,  4  ;  Cicero,  De  Offic.  2  (2),  5  ;  and  Ttisc.  Quccst.  4  (26),  57  — 
was  probably  intended  by  some  of  the  Stoics  for  such  as  could  not  ap- 
preciate the  grandeur  of  simple  moral  excellence. 

3  D 


50  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  III. 

qiiently  termed  lack  of  wisdom,  or  of  understanding,  folly 
or  senselessness.^'  In  our  scanty  remnants  of  the  Greek 
Stoics  we  find  it  designated  in  the  same  way.^^ 

The  Jews  used  the  Greek  term  Logos,  commonly  mean- 
ing WORD,  DISCOURSE,  or  REASON,  in  a  peculiar  sense,  to 
designate  any  utterance  of  the  Divine  Will  or  agency  of 
the  Deity,  though  without  understanding  by  it  apparently 
anything  which  could  be  permanently  separated,  except 
in  imagination,  from  God  himself^^  Among  the  Stoics 
we  find  the  same  or  a  similar  use  of  this  word.^*^ 

The  Jews  used  the  term  Law,  in  the  singular,  to  desig- 
nate the  Divine  will  or  enactment.  A  similar  use  of  it 
prevailed  among  Stoics,  but  not,  apparently,  among  other 
heathens.^^ 

27  "Foolish  men  (do-iWroi)  shall  not  attain  her  (Wisdom)  and  sinners 
shall  not  see  her."  —  Sirach,  15,  7.  "God  loves  nothing  which  does 
not  dwell  with  wisdom.  .  .  .  Wickedness  shall  not  prevail  against  wis- 
dom."—  Wisdom  of.  Solomon,  7,  28-30;  10,  8,  9.  "The  Lord 
loves  those  who  love  her."  —  Sirach,  4,  14;  14,  20.  "Fools  make  a 
mock  at  sin."  —  Prov.  14,  n. 

28  See  Hymn  of  Cleanthes,  line  17,  qnoted  in  note  24.  The  fourth  Stoic 
paradox  quoted  by  Cicero  {Oj^p.  Philos.  1,  fiio)  reads,  "  Every  [morally] 
foolish  man  is  insane."     Compare  the  fifth  paradox,  in  note  26. 

"^  See  quotations  in  Ch.  XI.  note  59,  from  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon. 
The  way  to  this  bold  personification  may  have  been  paved  by  such  earlier 
passages  as  the  following:  "  By  the  Logos  of  God  were  the  heavens  set 
fast."  —  Ps.  32  (33),  6.  God  "  sent  his  Logos  and  healed  them."—  Ps. 
106  (107),  20. —  In  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  20,  God  is  spoken  of, 
"who  created  all  things  by  his  Logos." 

3'  The  following  is  from  the  H}Tnn  of  Cleanthes : 
"All  things  in  nature  are  moved  (literally  shuilder)  by  thy  impulse. 

Whereby  thou  guidest  that  pervading  agency  (Logos)  which  through   all 
things 

Is  intermingled."  Lines  12-14. 

A  grammatical  difficulty,  which  cannot  seriously  affect  the  sense,  is 
treated  in  the  foregoing  as  it  is  by  the  Latin  translator.  In  line  20, 
after  a  mention  of  the  deity  as  having  conjoined  good  with  evil,  the 
writer  adds,  "So  that  One  may  become  moving  agency  (Logos)  of  all 
things  ever-existing,"  or  "of  the  ever-existing  universe." 

31  The  Hymn  of  Cleanthes  speaks  of  the  divine  nature  (line  2)  aa 
"  piloting  all  things  by  Law,"  and  again  mentions  the  — 


§1.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   GKEEK   STOICS.  51 

Jews  held  that  human  enactments  shonkl  conform  to 
this  law.  Stoics,  as  will  appear  in  Ch.  VII.  §  ix.  taught 
the  same. 

In  Jewish  writings  the  Deity  is  figuratively  represented 
as  a  pilot.^2  In  the  hymn  of  Cleanthes  the  same  figure 
of  speech  twice  occurs. 

A  play  upon  words,  common  to  Jews  and  Stoics,  is  sub- 
joined,^^ since  it  is  not  wholly  without  bearing  on  the 
question  of  mental  intercourse  between  the  two. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  a  similitude,  common  in  Jew- 
ish literature,^'^  which  Stoics  applied,  apparently  in  con- 
tempt, to  the  perishable  heathen  deities.^^     The  absence 

"  Unfortunates  who,  constantly  desiring  the  possession  of  gooil  things. 
Do  not  regard  the  all-pervading  Law  of  God,  nor  hearken  to  it, 
By  obeying  which  with  their  understanding,  they  would  have  an  excellent 
life."  Lines  22 -24. 

Perhaps  SvcTfiopoi  (unfortunates)  may  in  the  above  have  been  mentally 
associated  with  dvff/uiwpoi  (utterly  foolish).  Compare  notes  13,  3-3,  and  the 
use  of  mwrari  in  Sueton.  Nero,  33.     Again  in  the  same  production  we 

have  the  statement : 

"  There  is  no  greater  honor  to  mortals 
Nor  to  gods,  than  perpetually  to  hymn,  with  justice,  the  all-pervading  Law." 

Lines  35,  36,  (36,  37). 

In  the  above  passages  the  Greek  word  KOLvbv  (common),  meaning  com- 
mon to  the  whole  universe,  seems  best  rendered  by  all-])crvading. 

32  "Wisd.  of  SoL  14,  3,  quoted  in  note  20. 

^  ""E(7rat  K-6(T/xo?ah-o(Tjuo5." — Sibyl.  Or ac.  7,  123.  "  Koafias  S.Koa/xa." 
—  Hymn  of  Cleanthes,  line  18,  already  quoted.  Such  a  play  on  words 
seems  to  have  been  not  uncommon  among  at  least  one  class  of  Jews.  See 
ArjXos  &5r]\os,  2d/ios  dfi/xos,  'PufiTj  p^/j.7).  —  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  30;!,  364  ;  4, 
91,  92  ;   8,  1G5,  1G6. 

3*  The  phrase  melting  like  ivax  is  applied  to  the  wicked,  perishing 
from  God's  presence,  Ps.  68,  2,  and,  in  the  Septuagint,  57,  9.  Also  to 
the  hills,  Ps.  97,  5  ;  Micah,  1,  4,  and,  in  the  Septuagint,  Is.  64,  2  ; 
Judith,  16,  15.  Also  to  the  heart,  Ps.  22,  14.  In  the  Book  of  Enoch, 
1,  6,  the  same  simile  is  applied  to  what  shall  occur  in  the  day  of  judg- 
ment ;  the  Greek  words  rrjKSfxevov  ihs  Kijpbs  (edit.  Laurence,  2,  211,  §  X.) 
correspond  with  the  Septuagint  phraseology. 

^  See  citation  from  Plutarch,  in  note  18.  The  Greek  words  there 
used,  TrjKTovs  .  .  .  wawep  Krjpifovs,  are  merely  different  forms  of  those 
occurring  in  the  Greek  Old  Testament  and  in  the  Book  of  Enoch. 


52  JUDAISM  AT   R0:ME.  [cH.  III. 

of  respect  towards  these  beings  implied  in  the  similitude 
is  even  more  indicative  of  Jewish  influence  than  the  si- 
militude itself. 

The  Jewish  argument  applied  to  the  heathen  deities, 
that  whatever  is  born  must  also  perish,  seems  implied  in 
the  juxtaposition  of  the  two  ideas  by  the  Stoics.^^ 

The  argument  common  to  Jews  and  Stoics,  that  evi- 
dence of  design  in  tlie  universe  proved  the  existence  of 
an  intelligent  Creator,  will  be  considered  in  the  next 
section. 

The  name  Jupiter,  as  one  among  Stoic  appellations  for 
the  Deity,  must  not  be  regarded  as  implying  anything  in 
common  between  their  god  and  the  chief  deity  of  their 
heathen  cotemporaries.  It  would  be  as  reasonable  to 
confound  the  Shang-te  of  Christian  missionaries  with 
that  of  the  Chinese.^^ 

The  appellation  Father,  applied  by  them  to  the  Supreme 
Being,  was  borrowed  from  Jews.  It  must  not  be  un- 
derstood in  any  sense  common  among  heathens,  nor  yet 
perhaps  in  the  sense  to  which  Christianity  has  given 
prominence.  Heathens  used  it  to  express  the  dignity  or 
authority  of  Jupiter  as  ruling  head  over  the  family  of 
gods.^^  Jews  used  it  in  two  senses.  They  designated  by 
it  the  parental  affection  of  the  Deity  towards  his  earthly 
children,  or  towards  such  of  them  as  worshipped  him.^^ 

^  See  the  Jewish  argument  in  the  Proem  to  the  Sibylline  Oracles, 
Fragment  II.  line  1,  of  Friedlieb's  edit.,  or  line  39  of  Alexandre's 
quoted  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ii.  Part  A.  The  same  argument  as 
implied  by  Stoic  leaders  has  already  been  quoted  in  note  18. 

^  See  C"h.  I.  note  2.  The  same  reasons  which  weighed  with  such  men 
as  Morrison,  Medhurst,  Stronach,  and  others,  to  call  the  Supreme  Being 
Shang-tc,  might  influence  the  Stoics  in  calling  him  Jupiter. 

**  The  idea  that  control  is  the  prominent  feature  in  a  father,  has  been 
retained  in  European  political  phraseology.  Belgium,  in  answer  to  a  re- 
quest of  Prussia,  replied  :  "  Our  government  is  not  paternal  ;  we  have 
no  power  to  control  free  thought  or  free  speech."  —  Evening  Post 
(Weekly),  (N.  Y.),  April  28,  1875. 

89  "  A  father  of  tlie  fatherless  ...  is  God." 

Ps.  68,  5. 

'•These  [thy  followers]  thou  didst  test,  disciplining  them  as  a  father, 


§  I.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   GREEK   STOICS.  53 

They  also  designated  by  it  the  relation  of  the  Deity  to- 
wards the  universe  as  its  origin,  source,  or  parent. ^*^  In 
this  latter  sense  the  Stoics  used  it.  If  any  of  them  ap- 
plied it  to  the  Deity  in  the  former  sense,  we  have  at  least 
no  indubitable  record  of  such  use. 

A  question  —  natural  if  the  Stoics  originated  in  Jewish 
influence  and  equally  so  if  they  did  not  —  is,  "  Why  did 

but  the  others  [the  Egyptians]  thou  didst,  as  a  destroying  monarch, 
thoroughly  search  out  with  thy  condemnation."  —  Wisd.  of  Sol.  11, 
10  (or  in  the  Septuagint,  11,  li).     Compare  14,  3,  quoted  in  note  20. 

"As  a  father  pitieth  his  children, 
So  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  him." 

Ps.  103,  13. 
"  Wliom  the  Lord  loveth,  he  chasteneth, 
Even  as  a  father  the  son  in  wliom  he  delighteth." 

Prov.  3,  12,  Noyes's  trans. 
"  I  have  become  a  father  to  Israel, 
And  Ephraim  is  my  first-born." 

Jeremiah,  31,  0,  Noyes's  trans. 

Liberalist  Jews  may  have  deemed  the  Deity  parentally  thoughtful  for 
others  than  his  worshippers.  Such  a  view  might  well  be  prompted  by 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament  (see  Levit.  19,  34,  Deut.  10,  If,  19, 
quoted  on  pages  21,  22),  even  if  precedence  were  conceded,  as  in  1  Tim. 
4,  1-2,  to  believers. 

*"  In  modern  phraseology  we  speak  of  a  man  as  "  father  of  a  cause," 
"  father  of  a  denomination,"  "father  of  a  project,"  meaning  its  origi- 
nator. Idleness  is  termed  the  parent  of  vice  ;  that  is  its  source. 
Sirach  (23,  l  and  4)  applies  to  the  Deity  the  term  "  Father  of  my  life," 
meaning,  apparently,  its  author.  The  Jewish  term  yeveT7)p,  Forefather, 
Originator  (see  Ch.  I.  note  4),  corresponds  nearly  in  meaning  with  the 
foregoing  use  of  Father.  Plato's  use  of  the  latter  term  (see  Kote  K,  §  ii. 
No.  7)  was  probably  borrowed  from  the  Jews.  Compare  Seneca's  defini- 
tion of  the  term  "  Father  "  in  note  71. 

Philo  repeatedly  speaks  of  God  as  the  Father  and  Maker  of  the  world, 
using  the  term  Father  to  mean  Originator  or  Author.  See  Against 
Caius,  cc.  16,  36  (pp.  693,  line  18,  726,  line  26,  Paris  edit.)  ;  On  the  Cre- 
ation, c.  2  (p.  2,  line  2,  Paris  edit.) ;  On  the  World,  cc.  1,  2  (Bohn's 
trans.  4,  1S2,  183)  ;  On  [tJie]  Monarchy,  Paris  edit.  556,  line  10  ;  and  Ora 
Ahraham,  in  Pfeiffer's  edit.  5,  '234,  line  18.  If  any  one  of  these  works  be 
not  Philo's,  then  the  evidence  contained  in  it  is  from  an  additional  writer. 


54  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  III. 

they  originate  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria,  but  not  in  Egypt  ? 
The  answer  is,  that  in  Alexandria,  tlie  chief  school  of 
Egypt,  imagination  and  taste  seem  to  have  found  more 
favor  than  simple  statements  and  endeavors  at  accurate 
reasoning.  The  same  cause,  which,  at  a  later  date,  pre- 
cluded foothold  in  that  city  to  the  Marcionites,  or  Gnos- 
tics of  Asia  Minor,"*^  would  have  rendered  it  a  difficult 
field  for  Stoics. 

§  II.  Roman  Stoics. 

Among  Eoman  Stoics  we  find  additional  points  of 
union  with  Judaism.  The  Jews  had,  subsequently  at 
least  to  B.  c.  63,  taught  the  coming  of  a  King,  or  Alessi- 
ah,  who,  to  Europe,  would  have  been  a  King  from  the 
East.^^  Cicero,  writing  in  B.C.  44  or  43,  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  his  Stoic  ])rother  Quintus,  as  already  mentioned, 
an  expression  of  belief  in  a  King  from  the  East.^^ 

Again  certain  unmistakably  Jewish  books  were  in  cir- 
culation attributed  to  Sibylla.  Cicero  represents  his 
brother  as  defending  the  claim  of  these  books  to  fore- 
knowledge.^* 

The  exclusion  of  Stoics  from  public  affairs  (see  Ch.  I. 
note  31),  and  their  expulsion  from  liome  shortly  after  the 
capture  of  Jerusalem,*^  corroborate  their  affiliation  with 

*^  See  in  Ch.  XI.  §  I.  No.  1,  the  differing  characteristics  of  Marcio- 
nites and  Valentinians,  the  Gnostics  of  Asia  Minor  and  of  Alexandria. 

*^  See  Ch.  VI.  §  ii.  No.  1,  and  Sibylline  extract  in  Appendix,  Note  A, 
foot-note  96. 

*^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  96. 

**  See  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-notes  96,  97,  and  the  text  prefixed 
to  them. 

'^^  Tlie  reign  of  Vespasian  was  a  coalition  between  himself,  as  leader  of 
the  popular  party,  and  Mucianus,  as  leader  of  the  moderate  patricians. 
The  expulsion  of  Stoics  originated  with  the  latter,  and  took  place  in  the 
year  following  the  capture  of  Jerusalem. 

"  B(!cause  Demetrius  the  Cynic,  and  many  others,  prompted  by  what 
are  called  Stoic  doctrines  and  misusing  the  pretence  of  philosophj',  dis- 
cussed continmiUy  and  jjublicly,  to  such  as  might  be  present,  unsuitable 
things,  and  thus  almost  distracted  some,  MrciANUs  peiisuadkd  Vespa- 
sian to  expel  all  such  from  the  city,  saying  [to  that  end]  many  things 


§11.]  INFLUENCE   ON   THE   ROMAN   STOICS.  55 

Judaism.  Their  subsequent  expulsion,  or  alleged  expul- 
sion, under  Domitian,  admits  more  question  as  to  whether 
it  were  effected  by  the  emperor  or,  during  his  absence,  by 
the  aristocracy.^^ 

The  Noachic  deluge  is  treated  in  the  Book  of  Enoch 
and  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  as  a  thing  of  the  past,  which 
Noah  had  foretold,  whilst  in  both  works  a  conflagration  is 
represented  as  yet  future.  Quintus  Cicero,  in  the  passage 
abeady  referred  to,  whilst  maintaining  that  some  were 
endued  with  ability  to  foreknow  "  floods  *7  and  the  con- 


against  them  out  of  anger  rather  than  from  love  of  learning,  and  Vespasian 
immediately  ex[ielled  from  Eome  all  the  philosophers  except  Musonius." 
—  Dio  Cass.  66,  13,  O/yj.  4, 'i-iU,  edit.  Sturz.  The  teachings  which  "al- 
most distracted  some"  may  have  been  concerning  Rome's  destruction  or  the 
end  of  the  world,  both  of  which  were  at  that  date  subjects  of  popular 
anxiety.  Lucan  anticipated  the  conflagi-ation  with  the  confidence  of  a 
Second- Ad ventist.  "  Whether  the  corpses  [of  the  slain  at  Pharsalia]  shall 
perish  by  corruption,  or  by  the  funeral  pyre,  is  of  no  consequence.  Nature 
reassumes  all  things  in  her  placid  bosom.  ...  If,  Csesar,  the  fire  should 
not  burn  these  [various]  peoples  now,  it  will  burn  them  together  with  the 
earth,  it  will  burn  them  together  with  the  abysses  of  the  sea.  A  funeral 
pyre  remains  for  them  in  common  with  the  world,  [a  pyre]  which  shall 
commingle  the  stars  with  their  bones." — Pharsalia,  7,  809-815. 

The  Musonius,  excepted  above,  though  firm  in  a  needed  prosecution 
(Tac.  Hist.  4,  lo,  40),  would,  in  averting  a  recourse  to  arms  (Tac.  Hist.  3, 
Si),  have  earned  credit  with  a  peace  society. 

*6  Dio  Cassius,  who  in  the  preceding  note  identifies  philosophers  and 
Stoics,  subsequently  narrates  certain  events  under  Domitian,  to  which 
his  editor  has  affixed,  in  the  margin,  the  date  of  A.  D.  95.  His  narrative 
says  :  "Many  others  were  put  to  death  under  this  same  charge  of  phi- 
losophy, and  all  the  remaining  [philosophers]  were  again  expelled  from 
Eome."  —  Dio  Cass.  67,  13,  (Vol.  4,  278).  In  the  next  paragraph  is 
mentioned  the  condemnation  of  Christians,  or  of  Judaizing  Gentiles. 
These  two  events,  however,  are  comijlicated  with  a  contest  between 
Domitian  and  the  aristocracy,  to  which  we  must  hereafter  recur. 

*'  The  mention  of  floods  in  the  plural  maybe  owing  either  to  a  current 
tradition,  among  heathens,  of  a  flood  called  Deucalion's,  not  admitting 
identification  with  Noah's,  or  to  the  existence  of  different  Sibylline  frag- 
ments,  which  mentioned  or  alluded  to  the  flood  in  ways  that  created  a 
belief  in  more  than  one. 


56  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  III. 

flagration  of  heaven  and  earth,  which  is  to  take  place  at 
some  future  time,"  speaks  only  of  the  latter  event  as  IN 

THE  FUTURE. 

A  reasonable  inference  from  the  Second  Epistle  of  Pe- 
ter is,  that,  among  Jews,  a  belief  had  previously  gained 
currency  in  some  co-relation  between  the  flood  and  con- 
flagration.*^ A  similar  inference  concerning  Stoics  would 
be  less  certain,  yet  among  Eoman  Stoics  the  two  events 
are  constantly  mentioned  in  juxtaposition. 

There  was  one  Eoman  Stoic,  faithful  in  the  main  to  his 
sect,  who  had  his  own  reasons,  soon  to  be  given,  for  es- 
chewing any  identification  with  Judaism.  This  was  Sen- 
eca. AVhatever  prominence  he  may  have  mentally  given 
to  the  conflagration,*^  yet  in  his  writings  we  find  prece- 
dence, in  length  of  statement,  accorded  to  floods.  We 
find  them  among  future  equally  as  among  past  events. 
And  both  they  and  conflagrations  are  represented  as  nat- 
ural events  periodically  occurring.^'^    His  mention  of  con- 

48  »  The  THEN  EXISTING  world,  by  being  flooded  with  water,  was  de- 
stroyed, but  THE  PRESENT  heaven  and  earth  are  by  His  command  treasured 
up  for  fire,  being  reserved  to  a  day  of  judgment  and  destruction  upon 
men  who  ignore  God." — 2  Pet.  3,  6,  7. 

*^  In  note  71,  the  simile  of  Hercules  alludes  only  to  conflagrations. 

^  "Unless  I  falsify,  water  meets  those  who  dig  into  the  earth,  and,  as 
often  as  avarice  sends  us  underneath,  or  an}'  cause  compels  us  to  penetrate 
deeper  [than  usual],  water  puts  an  end  to  digging.  Add  to  this  that  im- 
mense lakes  are  hidden  below,  and  a  mass  of  hidden  sea,  a  mass  of  rivers 
running  down  through  unseen  places.  On  every  side  therefore  there  will 
be  causes  for  a  deluge,  since  some  waters  flow  through  the  earth,  otliers 
flow  around  it,  [both]  which,  long  restrained,  will  get  the  upper  hand. 
Rivers  will  join  with  rivers,  ponds  with  marshes.  At  that  time  the  sea 
will  fill  the  sources  of  all  fountains  and  will  set  them  free  with  a  wider 
mouth.  .  .  .  The  earth  will  dissolve  and,  while  other  causes  are  at  rest, 
will  find  within  itself  the  means  of  submersion.  Thus  I  should  believe 
that  all  masses  will  become  one. 

"Neither  will  this  destruction  be  long  delayed.  Concord  [of 
the  earth's  component  parts]  is  already  strained  and  giving  way,  tcntatur 
divclliiurqiu.  "When  once  the  world  shall  have  relaxed  somewhat  from 
this  requisite  diligence  [in  holding  tilings  to  their  place],  innnediately 
and  from  every  side,  from  what  is  visible  and  from  what  is  hidden,  from 


§11.]  INFLUENCE   OX   THE   ROMAN    STOICS.  57 

flagrations  in  tlie  plural  may  be  due  to  a  desire  of  advocat- 
ing natural  laws/^  or  of  differing  from  Judaism,  or  to  both. 
Seneca  was  but  a  youth  during  the  anti-Jewish  storm  of 

above  and  from  beneath,  an  irruption  of  waters  will  take  place.  Nothing 
is  so  violent  and  without  self-restraint,  so  ungovernable  and  injurious  to 
those  who  would  restrain  it,  as  a  violent  mass  of  water.  It  will  use  the 
permitted  liberty,  and  will  fill  what  it  now  divides  and  flows  round.  As 
lire  originating  in  diflerent  places  will  quickly  make  one  conflagration, 
the  flames  hastening  to  unite,  thus  in  a  moment  the  overflowing  seas  will 
co-operate. 

"  That  license  to  the  waters,  however,  will  not  be  perpetual.  But  when 
the  destruction  of  the  human  race  shall  have  been  accomplished  and  the 
wild  beasts  also,  whose  dispositions  men  had  adopted,  shall  have  perished, 
the  earth  will  again  absorb  the  waters.  Nature  will  compel  the  sea  to 
rest,  or  else  to  rage  within  its  own  bounds.  The  ocean,  thrown  back  from 
our  abodes,  will  be  driven  to  what  is  specially  its  own,  and  the  ancient 
order  [of  things]  will  be  recalled.  Every  [species  of]  animal  will  be 
generated  anew  ;  and  to  the  earth  man  will  be  given  ignorant  of 
CRIMES  AND  BORN  UNDER  BETTER  AUSPICES.  But  among  them  also  in- 
nocence will  only  last  whilst  they  are  [a]  new  [set].  Wickedness  creeps 
in  promptly.  Virtue  is  difficult  of  attainment ;  it  needs  a  superintendent 
and  guide.  Vices  are  learned  even  without  a  teacher." —  Seneca,  Nat. 
Qucest.  3,  30,  1  -  7  {0pp.  Philos.  5,  3(i7-3G9).     Cp.  Nat.  Quoist.  3,  29,  4  -  S. 

Seneca's  idea,  that  the  "concord"  between  different  constituent  parts 
of  the  earth  was  already  giving  way,  will  receive  illustration  from  his 
explanation  of  earthquakes,  in  his  Natural  Questions,  6,  10,  2  (Phil- 
osophical Works,  5,555),  namely,  that  portions  of  the  earth  —  supports 
apparently  of  this  up])er  surface  —  were  giving  away  with  age,  and  that 
the  concussion  of  their  fall  caused  earthquakes.  Compare  also  his 
moralizing  on  this  subject  in  Ch.  VIII.  in  a  note  at  the  commencement 
of  §  vir.  The  belief  of  Seneca  in  an  early  renovation  of  the  earth  may 
have  been,  and  in  all  probaliility  was,  strengtliened  by  that  popular  an- 
ticipation of  such  an  event,  which  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  kindled 
and  nourished  by  Jews.  The  reappearance  of  mankind  upon  the  earth 
was  but  a  modified  statement  of  the  "resurrection."  "We,  accord- 
ing to  His  announcement  (Is.  65,  IT,  66,  22),  expect  new  heavens  and  a 
new  earth  in  which  dwelleth  righteousness."  —  2  Peter,  3,13.  Com- 
pare Book  of  Enoch,  quoted  in  Appendix,  Note  D,  §  \. 

51  "The  deluge,  which,  equally  as  winter  or  summer,  comes  by  a  law  of 
the  world."—  Seneca,  Nat.  Qica-st.  3,  29,  3  (O^'iJ.  Philos.  5,  3fi4).     Conr- 
pare  in  note  68  his  views  on  the  relation  of  omens  to  natural  laws.     See 
also  p.  150  n.  ;  Lid.  Testimony,  foot  of  p.  181  ;  Tatian,  Oral.  0. 
3* 


58  JUDAISM  AT  BOME.  [CH.  III. 

A.  D.  19,  and  seems  to  have  needed  precautions  against  be- 
ing subjected  to  its  violence.^^  When  the  patrician  party, 
in  A.  D.  41,  regained  power,  he  was  banislied,^^  and  though 
recalled  in  A.  d.  49,  he  must  have  been  conscious  that  the 
patricians  deemed  him  an  unreliable,  or  untrue,  member 
of  their  body,  on  whom  they  would  be  glad  to  wreak  their 
animosity.^  His  j^recarious  position  did  not,  however, 
prevent  him  from  maintaining  the  perishable  nature  of 
the  gods,^^  nor  from  ridiculing  reactionary  movements  in 
their  honor,  though  it  may  have  prompted  him  to  accom- 
pany this  latter  procedure  with  a  Hing  at  Judaism.^^ 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  argument  from 
evidence  of  design  in  proof  that  an  intelligent  Being 
formed  the  world.  Jewish  literature  furnishes  more  than 
one  appeal  to  this  argument.^''  Stoic  teaching  again 
resembles  or  imitates  it.  Heathen  teaching,  with  slight 
exception,  does  not.  The  exception  bears,  though  in  less 
degree  than  Stoicism,  the  marks  of  Jewish  inlluence.^^ 
No   terser   statement   of    the   argument    could    well  be 

62  See  Seneca,  Ejnst.  108,  '21,  11,  cited  in  Ch.  VIII.  §  i.  note  9. 

63  Compaie  iu  Ch.  V.  notes  9  and  10,  and  the  text  belonging  to 
them. 

6*  See  in  Ch'.  V.  note  9,  Seneca's  affirmation  of  risk  consequent  on  any 
openly  manifested  disapproval  of  public  games  or  brutalities. 

65  Seneca,  si)eaking  of  a  wise  man  condemned  to  solitude,  thinks 
that  he  would  be  "such  as  Jupiter,  when  on  the  dissolution  of  the 
world  and  the  blending  of  gods  into  one  chaos,  he,  during  the  tempo- 
rary cessation  of  nature,  is  content  with  himself,  being  given  up  to  his 
own  reflections."  — ■  Epist.  9,  13. 

66  See  on  pp.  fi7,  226,  228,  citations  by  Augustine  {De  CivUate  Dei, 
6,  10,  11)  from  Seneca,  Against  Superstitions. 

67  "He  that  planted  the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear  ?  He  that  formed  the 
eye,  shall  he  not  see  ?"  — Ps.  94,  9.  "  For  the  mass  of  men  (literally, 
all  men)  are  heedless  by  nature  [in  that]  they  were  ignorant  of  God,  and 
unable  to  know  The  Being  from  his  visible  benefits,  neither  by  study- 
ing his  works  did  they  recognize  the  artist." — "Wisd.  of  Sol.  13,  l. 
"  Nor  yet  are  they  to  be  pardoned,  for  if  they  had  so  much  knowledge 
that  they  could  examine  the  world,  why  did  they  not  sooner  discover  its 
master?"  —  Wisd.  of  Sol.  13,  s,  <.\     Compare  Rom.  1,  -iO,  il. 

68  See  Appendix,  Note  K,  §  i.  2-5,  §  II.  1-9. 


§111.]  GENERAL   REMARKS.  59 

framed  than  that  which  Cicero  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
the  Stoic  Balbus.^^ 

§  III.    General  Remarks. 

That  any  set  of  men  should  be  pantheists,  that  is, 
should  identify  God  and  the  world,  or  ascribe  to  the 
world  the  attributes  of  an  intelligent  Being,  would  be  a 
singular  feature  in  human  history.*"*^  Yet  the  Stoics  have 
been  commonly  regarded  as  doing  this,  and  passages  in 
some  of  their  writers  bear  out  the  statement.^^     Other 


53  Balbus  alludes  to  a  planetarium  which  had  been  lately  constructed 
by  his  friend  Posidonius,  so  as  to  imitate,  with  each  revolution,  the  motion 
of  the  sun,  moon,  and  five  —  then  known  —  planets,  and  asks  :  "If  any 
one  should  take  this  sphere  to  Scythia  or  Britain,  .  .  .  who  among  the 
Barbarians  could  doubt  that  it  had  been  perfected  rationc,  by  intelli- 
gence ?  And  yet  they  doubt  concerning  the  world  from  which  all  things 
originate,  and  by  which  they  are  made,  whether  IT  be  the  result  of 
chance,  or  necessity,  or  of  a  divine  reason  and  mind,  and  have  a  higher 
opinion  of  Archimedes  for  imitating,  than  of  Nature  for  creating,  the 
revolutions  of  the  sphere."  —  Cicero,  De  NafAira  Deoricm,  2,  (i-l,  3.i), 
8S.  Balbus  had  already  argued,  in  §  18,  that  the  world  was  endowed 
with  wisdom  and  reason.  We  shall  find  in  Ch.  VII.  §  i.  that  the  dis- 
cussion, of  which  this  forms  a  part,  is,  by  its  autlioi',  identified  in  time 
with  the  arrival  of  a  monotheistic  manuscript  in  Rome.  Posidonius  (or 
Poseidonius)  was  a  Stoic  teacher  and  student  of  natural  science,  resident 
at  Ehodes,  a  Syrian  by  birth,  as  already  mentioned  in  note  3. 

^  The  identification  of  God  with  the  world  implies,  of  course,  either 
that  the  Deity  lacks  consciousness  and  intelligence,  or  that  the  world 
possesses  both.  It  seems  out  of  the  (question  for  any  sane  man  to  hold 
this  latter  view,  to  believe  that  the  earth  which  he  digs,  the  water 
wherein  he  cooks  his  meals,  and  the  stone  or  wood  out  of  which  he  con- 
structs his  home,  have  either  intelligence  or  consciousness.  The  word 
God  applied  to  what  has  neither  thought  nor  feeling  seems  a  senseless 
misnomer. 

«i  ""WHiat  is  God?  The  mind  of  the  universe.  What  is  God?  All 
which  you  see,  and  all  which  you  do  not  see."  —  Seneca,  Nat.  Quoest. 
Preface  to  Book  1,  §§  11,  12.  "Do  you  wish  to  call  him  Fate?  You 
will  not  err.  ...  Do  you  wish  to  call  him  Providence  ?  You  will  say 
rightly.  ...  Do  you  wish  to  call  him  Nature  ?  You  are  committing 
no  fault.      Do  you  wish  to  call  him  the  World  ?    You  will  not  be  de- 


60  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  III. 

passages,  even  in  the  same  writers,  conflict  with  it.^^  Not 
improbably  their  minds  fluctuated  on  the  .subject.  They 
did  not  share  Jewish  belief  in  a  revelation  which  had 
man's  moral  improvement  for  its  object,  and,  without 
this,  a  hindrance  existed  to  believing  in  a  moeal  ruler  of 
the  universe.  Yet,  if  the  deity  were  divested  of  moral 
attributes,  a  Arm  faith  in  his  personal,  intelligent  exist- 
ence was  unlikely  to  endure.  In  such  Stoics  as  asso- 
ciated much  with  Jews,  the  conception  of  God  as  a  per- 
sonal being  may  have  predominated.  The  minds  of 
others  may  have  alternately  retreated  from  objections  to 
deeming  him,  on  the  one  hand,  a  personal  being,  or,  on 
the  other,  a  mere  force  inherent  in  matter.^ 

Any  belief  in  a  physical  resurrection  was  likely  to  find 
more  advocates  among  Stoics  of  Asia  Minor  or  Syria  than 
in  western  localities  where  Jews  exercised  less  influence. 
The  Greek  word  for  a  resurrection,  dmo-Tao-ts,  admits  the 

ceived,  for  he  is  all  wliicli  you  see." —  Seneca,  Nat.  Quast.  2,  45,  l,  2. 
Compare  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  32,  Virgil's  pantheistic  imita- 
tion of  a  monotheistic  document. 

^'^  See,  for  instance,  the  detailed  statement  in  Seneca,  De  Bencficiis, 
Book  4,  chapters  5,  6.  In  his  Natural  Questions,  2,  45,  ■.',  he  speaks  of 
God  "by  whose  spirit  we  live,"  and  says  in  his  Epistle  65,  -24,  "All 
things  consist  of  matter  AND  of  God.  .  .  .  But  that  which  makes  — 
namely,  God  —  is  more  powerful  and  precious  than  matter,  Avhich  is  sub- 
ject to  God. "  Plutarch,  quotes  [Dc  Stoic.  Repucjnant.  39  ;  0pp.  10, 
348)  from  Chrysippus  that  Jupiter  and  the  world  are  the  only  gods 
which  need  no  nourishment ;  and  again  on  the  same  page,  that  "  Jupiter 
will  increase  until  he  shall  destroy  all  things  by  absorption  into  him- 
self." 

^^  Seneca  says  :  "W^hether  the  world  be  a  soul,  on  a  body  under 
the  guidance  of  nature,  as  trees  and  plants  are."- — Nat.  Qucvst.  3,  29,  2; 
Op2}.  5,  3(54.  There  is  a  visible  difference  between  a  living  tree  or  plant 
and  a  dead  one.  Persons  destitute  of  belief  in  a  personal  Deity,  through 
whose  aid  all  things  live  and  move  and  have  their  being,  recognize  in  the 
vitality  of  a  tree  or  plant  some  force  unconscious  of  its  own  existence. 
Its  operations  are  not  hap-hazard,  and  in  so  far  seem  intelligent.  Yet  it 
lacks  the  chief  traits  of  an  intelligent  being.  This  force,  unconscious  of 
its  own  existence,  was,  in  most  cases  perhaps,  what  European  Stoics  meant 
when  they  used  the  word  God. 


§  m.]  GENERAL   REMARKS.  61 

meaning  re-establishment,  and  could  therefore  be  applied 
to  a  renovation  of  the  earth  and  of  mankind  as  taught  by 
Seneca. 

Thoughtful  Stoics  may  have  fluctuated  on  several 
points.  Seneca  at  one  period  of  his  life  evinced  strong 
faith  in  a  future  conscious  existence.^^  At  other  times 
he  speaks  doubtfully.^ 

A  document  of  which,  under  the  name  of  Hystaspes,  a 
mention  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ix.  renders 
it  not  improbable  that  some  Stoics  taught  a  judgment. 

On  the  subject  of  omens  and  divination  the  earlier 
Stoics  coincided  with  heathen,*^*"  rather  than  Jewish  views, 
at  least  if  by  Jewish  we  understand  the  views  of  the  more 
conscientious.     Monotheism  does  not  preclude  belief  in 

64  ""vviien  that  day  comes  which  shall  separate  this  mixture  of  the 
divine  and  human,  I  shall  leave  my  body  here  where  I  found  it.  ...  I 
am  detained  in  an  oppressive  earthly  prison.  By  these  delays  of  an 
earthly  age  a  prelude  is  given  to  that  better  and  longer  life.  .  .  .  "We  are 
maturing  for  another  birth.  .  .  .  We  cannot  bear  heaven  until  after  an 
interval  [of  preparation]." —  Seneca,  Ejnst.  102,  -22,  23. 

^5  "Death  either  destroys  us  or  sets  us  free." — Seneca,  Epist.  24, 18. 
"Perhaps  if  —  only  the  saying  of  the  wise  be  true,  and  if  some  locality 
awaits  us  —  he  whom  we  regard  as  perished  has  been  sent  before  us."  — 
Seneca,  Epist.  63,  13.  "Death  is  either  our  end  or  a  transition."  — 
Seneca,  Epist.  65,  26. 

^^  "But  whereas  the  Stoics  argued  for  all  such  things  because  Zeno 
had  scattered  certain  seeds  thereof,  as  it  were,  in  his  commentaries,  and 
Cleanthes  had  slightly  developed  them,  there  supervened  Chrysippus,  a 
man  of  most  acute  genius,  who  explained  his  whole  opinion  concerning 
divination  in  two  books,  with  yet  another  concerning  oracles,  and  one 
concerning  dreams.  Following  him,  his  auditor,  Diogenes  of  Babylon, 
issued  one  book  ;  Antipater,  two  ;  our  Posidonius,  live.  But  Pantetius, 
the  leader  in  that  sect,  the  teacher  of  Posidonius,  the  disciple  of  Antip- 
ater, degenerated  from  [the  positions  of]  the  Stoics.  Yet  even  he  did 
not  dare  to  deny  the  ability  to  divine,  but  said  that  he  doubted.  What 
it  was  lawful  in  one  thiiig  for  him,  a  Stoic,  to  do,  in  spite  of  the  utter 
disinclination  of  the  Stoics  generally,  ought  not  the  Stoics  to  concede 
that  AVE  should  do  in  other  things  ?  Especially  when  that,  which  was 
not  clear  to  Panfetius,  is  clearer  than  sunlight  to  the  remainder  of  his 
sect." — Cicero,  De  Divinatione,  1,  3. 


62  JUDAISM  AT  ro:me.  [ch.  m. 

omens.  Yet  Jewish  writings  before  the  Christian  era  never 
advocate  it ;  a  fact  well  deserving  note,  especially,  at  that 
stage  of  the  world.  A  Being,  whose  communications  had 
been  exclusively  addressed  to  man's  moral  nature,  was  not 
one  upon  whom  questions  such  as  were  proposed  to  heath- 
en deities  could  be  obtruded.  Perhaps  this  may  explain 
why  the  argument  which  Cicero  puts  into  his  brother's 
mouth  ^^  must  have  failed  of  currency  among  reverential 
Jews.  Yet  there  was  another  reason  which  may  have 
reached  a  larger  class.  Divination  was  commonly  at- 
tributed to  the  aid  of  spirits  whom  the  Jews  regarded  as 
evil,  and  with  whom  they  deemed  themselves  forbidden 
to  hold  intercourse. 

After  Cicero's  time  the  Stoics,  if  we  can  judge  from 
Seneca  and  Epictetus,  modified  or  reversed  their  views  of 
divination.     Seneca  seemingly  ridicules  it,*^®  and  Epictetus 

^"^  Cicero  ascribes  to  his  brother  Quintus  the  followhig  vsummary: 
"If  there  are  gods,  and  if  thej^  do  not  make  known  to  men  future 
events  beforehand,  either  they  do  not  love  men ;  or  they  are  Ignorant  of 
the  future  ;  or  they  think  it  is  of  no  importance  to  men  to  know  the 
future  ;  or  they  do  not  think  that  it  comports  with  their  dignity  to  pre- 
indicate  the  future  to  men  ;  or  not  even  the  gods  [though  acquainted 
with  the  future]  have  means  of  comunicating  future  events."  —  Cicero, 
De  Divinat.  1,  (38),  82.  As  none  of  these  were  admissible  snpiiositions, 
Quintus  believed  in  divination.  In  the  course  of  his  answer  Cicero  re- 
marks :  "  They  say  that  there  is  nothing  impossible  to  divine  power.  I 
wish  that  it  had  made  the  Stoics  wise,  so  that  they  should  not,  with 
superstitious  solicitude  and  nnhappiness,  believe  everything."  Or  per- 
haps the  translation  should  read,  "So  that  they  should  not  with  anxiety 
and  nnhappiness  believe  all  things  which  are  superstitious." — De  Divinat. 
2,  (41),  8C.  At  a  later  date  this  language  would,  so  far  as  it  applied  to 
omens  and  divination,  have  been  deemed  by  patricians  very  heretical. 
The  pitch  which  conservative  condemnation  of  Cicero  attained  in  the  third 
century  will  be  found  in  Ch.  V.  note  64. 

68  "We  think:  Because  clouds  have  collided,  therefore  lightnings 
are  emitted.  They  (the  Tuscan  soothsayers)  think  that  the  clouds  col- 
lided for  the  express  purpose  of  emitting  lightnings.  For  when  they  re- 
fer all  things  to  divine  power,  ad  drjim.,  they  are  evidently  of  opinion, 
that  the  significance  is  not  because  of  the  occurrences,  but  the  occurrences 
take  place  because  of  their  significance.     These  things  are  brought  to 


§m.]  GENERAL  REMARKS.  63 

puts  it  not  a  little  into  the  backgroimd.^^  Persons  who 
differ  from  established  views  may  in  several  ways  be  mis- 
led into  unduly  retaining  popular  phraseology."^  The 
patrician  representative  of  the  Stoics  betrays  this  ten^ 
dency.^^ 

pass  by  the  same  intelligence,  whether  what  they  signify  be  the  object  or 
[merely]  the  consequence  of  their  occurrence.  But  how  can  they  have 
signiticance  unless  they  are  sent  by  divine  power  a  deo  ?  Unless  birds 
had  been  put  in  motion  for  this  express  purpose,  that  they  should  meet 
us,  how  could  they  have  occasioned  right-hand  or  left-hand  auspices  ? 
Divine  power,  [the  Tuscan]  says,  did  move  them,  [I  answer]  :  You  treat 
divine  nature  as  if  it  had  too  little  to  do  and  make  it  the  minister  of 
trifles,  if  it  arranges  dreams  for  one  and  entrails  for  another.  Such 
things  take  place  through  divine  aid,  but  the  wings  of  birds  are  not 
guided  by  divine  power  nor  are  the  entrails  of  animals  formed  under  [the 
blow  of]  the  axe." — Seneca,  Nut.  Qucest.  2,  32,  •.',  3.  The  concluding 
remark  may  have  been  based  on  Cicero's  answer  to  his  brother,  De  Divi- 
TMtione,  2, 16  (§§  36,  37),  that  an  ox  could  not  have  lived  without  a  heart, 
nor  could  the  heart  have  flown  away  at  the  moment  of  sacrifice.  Seneca, 
however,  had,  in  opposition  to  him  the  patrician  party,  who,  with  little 
or  no  belief  themselves  in  divination,  deemed  a  denial  thereof  a  serious 
political  heresy.  Owing  to  this  or  some  other  reason,  he  mitigates  his 
denial  by  stretching  natural  laws  so  as  to  cover  the  case,  and  affirms  almost 
immediately  afterwards  :  "There  is  no  animal  which,  by  its  motion  and 
meeting  with  us,  does  not  foretell  something." — Nat.  Qiucst.  2,  32,  6. 

63  Epictetus,  Disserted.  2,  7,  G.  (Compare,  however,  Lissertat.  3,  22, 
53).  Encliciridion,  c.  39,  otherwise  numbered  32.  These  will  be  found  in 
Schweighfeuser's  edit.  1,  pp.  20],  457  ;  4,  pp.  402,  403,  ;  and  in  Higginson's 
translation,  pp.  112,  250,  388,  389. 

^^  Sometimes  the  motive  is  to  avoid  odium  ;  sometimes  it  is  hesitation 
in  selecting  the  most  appropriate,  or  defensible,  new  terms  for  new  views. 
Some  have  their  desire  of  harmony  satisfied,  or  at  least  gratified,  if  per- 
sons of  discordant  opinions  can  be  brought  to  express  them  in  the  same 
form  of  words.  Others  please  themselves  with  believing  their  own  views 
more  comprehensive  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  incongruous  systems 
whose  phraseology  they  can  adopt.  Benevolent  endowments  conjoined 
to  creeds  were  a  motive  unknown  to  heathens. 

'^^  *'  It  is  permissible  to  call  by  other  names  the  author  of  our  aff'airs. 
You  may  appropriately  call  him  Jupiter.  .  .  .  Stator,  who  is  not  Stator 
because  .  .  .  after  a  vow  to  him,  a  flying  army  of  Romans  stood  fast,  but 
because  through  his  good  offices  all  things  stand.  .  .  .  Our  [sect]  deem  him 
father  Bacchus  and  Hercules  and  Mercury  :  father  Bacchus,  because  he 


64  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  III. 

Cynics  and  Stoics  were  somewhat  identified  at  Eome,'^ 
tliough  not  perhaps  until  after  the  expulsion,  already 
mentioned,  of  Greek  culture  and  Judaism  from  that  city. 
A  Cynic  was,  apparently,  a  morose  or  dogged  Stoic,  or 
one  who  prided  himself  on  disregarding  the  comforts  of 
life.''^  In  fact  any  Stoics  remote  from  Judaism  and  with- 
out, or  with  faint,  belief  in  a  moral  ruler  of  the  universe, 
or  in  a  future  life,  must  have  been  exposed  to  the  risk  of 
becoming  grumblers.  Their  superior  attention  to  moral 
questions  would  make  them  dissatisfied  with  the  world 
around  them,  while  there  was  nothing  in  their  system 
which  could  counteract  this  dissatisfaction  or  make  them 
cheerful,  hopeful,  and  happy.  The  half-formed  opinions 
and  personal  defects  of  this  class  must  not,  however, 
blind  us  to  the  earnest  convictions  and  philanthropic  zeal 
of  truer  Stoics.  The  importance  which  they  attached  to 
correct  views  of  God  can  nowhere  be  found  in  heathen 
writers.'^* 

The  affiliation  of  Stoics  with  Jews  implies,  that  the 

is  parent  of  all  things  ;  .  .  .  Hercules,  because  his  strength  is  insuperable 
and  [because  !]  when  he  shall  be  wearied  with  labors  performed,  he  will 
"WITHDRAW  INTO  THE  FIRE  ;  Mercury,  because  reasoning  and  calculation 
and  order  and  knowledge  belong  to  him.  ...  If  you  call  him  Nature, 
Fate,  Fortune,  all  are  names  of  the  same  God  using  his  power  variously." 
—  Seneca,  De  Benefic.  4,  7,  8,  0pp.  2,  473-47.5.  The  Hymn  of  Clean- 
thes  in  its  first  line  addresses  the  deity  as  having  many  names,  yet  its 
author  may  have  had  in  mind  appellations  very  different  from  tliose  of 
Seneca  and  not  accommodated  to  heathen  prejudices. 

■^^  See  an  instance  in  note  45.  Epictetus  identifies  himself  with  the 
Stoics  in  his  DisacrfM.  2,  19,  23,  24  ;  3,  7,  17  (pp.  160,  211,  Higgin- 
son's  trans.)  ;  and  with  the  Cynics,  Disscrtat.  3,  22,  1-95  (pp.  243  -  258, 
Higginson's  trans.). 

'''^  Seneca  treats  the  Stoics  as  having  control  over,  and  the  Cynics  as 
having  divestcid  themselves  of,  their  natural  tendencies,  licet  .  .  .  homi- 
nis  naturam  cum  Stoicis  vincere  cum  Cynicis  exccdcre.  Seneca,  De  Brevi- 
tate  VitCB,  15,  5  ;  0pp.  Philosoph.  1,  454. 

'*  Cicero,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  De  Naiura  Deorum  (3,  94),  represents 
the  Stoic  Balbus,  after  listening  to  Cotta's  raillery,  as  exclaiming  that 
they  must  discuss  it  again,  that  it  was  ^;ro  aris  etfocis  for  the  most  pre- 
cious of  human  possessions. 


§111.]  GENERAL   REMARKS.  65 

mass  of  them,  at  least  after  party  lines  had  been  drawn, 
were  not  in  political  sympathy  with  patricians.  Excep- 
tions to  this  exist,  as  in  the  case  of  Helvidius  Prisons 
and  ]\Iarc  Antonine.  Politics  in  the  former,  probably, 
overlaid  philosophy."^  The  latter,  though  well-inten- 
tioned, was  so  extravagantly  fond  of  approbation  as  to 
become  an  easy  tool  of  the  aristocracy.  A  dignity  or 
fortitude  of  character,  attributed  to  Stoicism,  may,  es- 
pecially at  an  early  day,  have  drawn  towards  it  some  of 
the  Eoman  aristocracy  in  ignorance,  or  in  disregard  of  its 
alliance  with  Judaism. 

In  Hadrian's  time  Christianity  had  gained  an  influence 
in  the  heathen  world  which  certainly  equalled,  and  ap- 
parently much  exceeded,  that  of  Judaism.  At  this  junc- 
ture, an  embittered  war  "^  severed  the  hold  of  the  latter 
upon  heathens,  and  left  Christianity  to  carry  on  the 
work  which  Judaism  had  begun.  The  generation  which 
witnessed  this  crisis  witnessed  also  the  last  days  of 
Stoicism.  Some  already  in  its  ranks  retained  their  alle- 
giance.''^    But  no  one  born  during  or  after  the  Jewish 

"5  This  Helvidius  was,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the  personification  of 
ultra-senatorial  ideas.  An  emperor  of  the  popular  party  was  hateful  to 
liim  (compare  Cli.  X.  foot-note  37),  but  one  who  belonged  to  and 
favored  his  class  received  honor  at  his  hands.  After  the  death  of  Nero, 
the  aristocracy  called  in  Galba,  whose  journey  to  the  city,  accord- 
ing to  Tacitus  [Hist.  1,  c)  was  bloody,  and  one  of  whose  first  acts  was  to 
murder  several  thousand  unarmed  soldiers  (Tacitus,  Hist.  1,  6,  37)  on 
the  day  of  his  entry.  When  Galba,  not  long  afterwards,  M'as  killed, 
Helvidius  Priscus  asked  for  his  body.  (Plutarch,  Galba,  2S.)  What 
little  we  know  of  Helvidius  renders  it  less  probable  that  this  request 
was  prompted  by  disinterested  humanity  than  by  party  sympathy. 

The  reader  may  take  interest  in  comparing  his  action  with  the  follow- 
ing from  two  non-conservatives :  "  On  the  killing  of  Galba,  some  one 
remarked  to  [Musonius]  Rufus,  '  Now  the  world  is  governed  by  Provi- 
dence.' His  reply  was,  'Did  I  ever  casually  argue  from  Galba  that  the 
world  was  governed  by  Providence?'" — Epictetus,  3,  15,  ]4.  In 
Higginson's  translation  it  stands  at  the  close  of  Ch.  17.  This  Musonius 
is  the  Stoic  mentioned  in  note  45. 

■s  See  Ch.  X.  §  vi.  and  Ch.  XI. 

"^  Arrian  was  thirty  years  old  when  the  war  broke  out,  and  Marc 
Antonine,  though  but  a  boy,  had  made  profession  of  Stoicism. 

E 


6Q  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  IV. 

war  under  Hadrian  is  known  to  history  as  a  Stoic.  Had 
the  sect  been  exchisively  of  heathen  origin  this  would  be 
unaccountable.  If  it  originated  in  monotheistic  influence, 
one  explanation,  and  only  one,  seems  tenable.  A  class 
of  heathens  who  admired,  or  were  attracted  towards,  the 
teachings  of  Judaism,  had,  by  some  of  its  customs,  or  by 
prejudice  of  race,  been  kept  outside  of  its  ranks.  Mono- 
theism, and  a  God  interested  in  man's  moral  education, 
were  now  taught  without  these  customs  and  without 
barrier  of  race.  Thenceforward  this  class  became 
Christians. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

JEWISH  DIVISION  INTO  WEEKS. 

§  I.   Adopted  hy  Heathens. 

The  preceding  chapter  gave  details  of  Jewish  influence 
on  a  body  of  thoughtful  moralists.  The  present  one  im- 
plies equal  or  stronger  influence  on  the  popular  mind. 
The  Jews  divided  time  into  weeks,  a  division  unknown 
to  Greeks  and  Romans  before  contact  with  them.^  Its 
universal  adoption  by  society,  while  the  government  and 
ruling  classes  were  hostile  to  Judaism,  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  its  convenience,^  nor  in  any  way,  save  by 
assuming  a  Jewish  influence  on  the  generality  of  heath- 
ens so  powerful  as  to  overbear  governmental  and  patri- 
cian opposition. 

1  See  Smith,  Did.  of  Antiq.  pp.  222  -  233,  on  the  Greek  and  Eoman 
Calendar.     Any  division  into  weeks  is  there  ignored. 

2  Seven  days  constitute  the  nearest  approximation  to  one  quarter  of  a 
lunar  month.  The  number  is  not  an  exact  divisor  either  of  a  month  or 
year,  and  it  admits  no  subdivision.  In  Christian  communities  time  is 
much  less  calculated  for  secular  purposes  by  weeks  than  by  mouths  and 
days. 


§1.]  JEWISH   DIVISION   INTO   WEEKS.  67 

Already,  thirty  or  forty  years  before  the  Christian  era, 
Horace  represents  a  friend  as,  jocosely  or  seriously,  de- 
clining attention  to  business  on  the  thirtieth  sabbath, 
with  the  remark,  "  I  am  one  of  the  many."  ^ 

About  the  Christian  era  a  heathen  teacher  in  Ehodes, 
mentioned  by  Suetonius,*  taught  on  every  seventh  day, 
which  implies  that  the  division  into  weeks  was  already 
recognized,  to  at  least  a  moderate  extent,  by  the  com- 
munity around  him. 

Near  the  middle  of  the  first  century,  Seneca,  after 
speaking  of  the  sabbath,  represents  Jewish  usages  as 
having  pervaded  all  nations,  the  conquered  as  having 
given  law  to  the  conquerors,  —  a  noteworthy  testimony 
from  one  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the  usages.  In 
another  passage  he  condemns  the  custom  of  lighting 
candles  or  lamps  on  the  sabbath.^ 

At  the  close  of  the  first  century  Josephus  appeals  to 
heathen  cognizance  of  the  extent  to  which  observance 
of  the  seventh  day  and  of  other  Jewish  customs  had 
spread.^     Whatever    may  have  been   the   character   of 

^  See  fuller  quotation  in  Ch.  VII.  note  49. 

*  "  Diogenes,  the  grammarian,  who  used  to  hold  public  disquisitions 
at  Ehodes  every  sabbath-day,  once  refused  him  [Tiberius]  admittance 
upon  his  coming  to  hear  him  out  of  course,  and  sent  him  a  message  by 
a  servant,  postponing  his  admission  until  the  next  seventh  day."  — 
Suetonius,  Tiberius,  32,  Bohn's  trans. 

5  Seneca,  Against  Superstitions  (quoted  by  Augustine,  De  Civitate  Dei, 
6,  11)  ;  also  Epistle  95,  47.  See  both  passages  quoted  more  fully  in  Ch. 
VIII.  note  132.  * 

®  "  Has  not  marked  imitation  of  our  practical  monotheism  [in  the 
sense  of  monotheistic  practices]  found  place  in  far-off  multitudes  ? 
There  is  no  city  whatever  of  the  Greeks  nor  a  barbarian  one,  there  is  not 
one  nation,  where  the  custom  has  not  spread  of  [observing]  the  sevcntli 
day,  on  which  we  rest.  Also  our  fasts,  our  burning  of  lamps  and  many 
of  our  prohibited  meats,  are  borne  in  mind.  They  try  also  to  imitate 
our  mutual  good-will,  our  alms-giving  of  our  goods,  our  industry  in 
MECHANICAL  ARTS,  and  our  endurance  in  suffering  for  our  laws."  —  Jo- 
sephus, Against  Apion,  2,  39  (al.  40).  Compare  Juvenal,  cited  in  Ch. 
X.  note  118.  On  the  use  of  "practical  monotheism"  to  designate  or 
include  ceremonial  observances,  see  in  the  Appendix,  under  Note  B, 
§  1,  the  last  paragraph  of  sub-section  4. 


68  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  IV. 

Joseplius,  Ilis  appeal  would  have  been  inexplicable,  unless 
the  division  into  weeks  had  already  been  widely  adopted 
by  heathens. 

§  II.   Numhering  and  Nomenclature  of  the  Days. 

A  distinct  question  from  the  division  into  weeks  is 
that  of  nomenclature  for  the  individual  days.  The  Jews 
used  none.''  They  designated  the  first  and  last  days  of 
the  week  as  the  "First"  day,  the  "Seventh"  day.  How 
they  designated  the  intermediate  ones  is  less  evident, — 
perhaps  by  numbering  forward  or  backward  from  the 
seventh.  In  the  beginning  of  the  third  century,  a  cus- 
tom had  become  general  among  heathens  of  naming  the 
seven  days  after  the  sun,  moon,  and  five  then  known 
■planets.^  Fifty  years  earlier  Justin  Martyr,  a  Gentile 
Christian,  subsequently  to  the  Jewish  rebellion  under 
Hadrian,  in  a  work  addressed  to  heathens,  speaks  of 
Sunday  and  Saturday,  but  ignores  or  avoids  any  name 
for   Friday.^     Tertullian    also,    in   works    addressed    to 

^  Their  term  sabbath  for  the  seventh  day  is  scarcely  an  exception. 

^  "The  connecting  of  the  days  with  the  seven  stars  called  planets 
[the  sun,  moon,  and  five  then  known  planets]  originated  with  the 
Egyptians,  and  exists  among  all  men,  having,  as  we  may  say,  com- 
menced not  very  long  ago.  The  ancient  Greeks,  as  I  think,  knew 
nothing  of  it.  Biit  since  it  is  now  a  fixed  custom  both  among  other 
people  and  among  the  Romans  themselves,  and  is  to  these  latter  in 
some  sense  a  national  custom,  I  wish  to  discourse  a  little  concern- 
ing it."— Dio  Cass.  37,  is  ;  Vol.  1,  302.  Dio  treats  this  subject  in 
connection  with  the  Jewish  ni&tters  in  the  time  of  Pompey,  B.  c.  63.  It 
was,  therefore,  in  his  mind,  associated  with  the  Jews.  By  Egyptians,  he 
must  have  meant  merely  residents  of  Egypt,  —  Greek  residents,  no 
doubt,  since  the  names  of  the  planets  are  borrowed  from  those  of  Greek, 
not  of  Egyptian,  deities. 

*  "  On  the  day  called  '  of  the  Sun '  all  .  .  .  come  together.  ...  On 
the  day  of  the  Sun  we  all  come  together  since  it  is  the  '  First  day  '  on 
which  God,  after  dispelling  darkness  and  chaos,  formed  the  world,  and  on 
the  same  day  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour  rose  from  the  dead.  For  they  cru- 
cified liim  on  THE  pay  bf.fore  the  day  of  Satukn  ;  and  on  the  day 
after  the  day  of  Saturn,  tliat  is,  on  the  day  of  the  Sun,  ...  he  taught 
these  things."  — Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  1,  UT. 


§  II.]  JEWISH   DIVISION   INTO   WEEKS.  69 

heathens,  uses  the  terms  day  of  the  Sun  and  day  of 
Saturn.^^  The  surmise  would  be  plausible,  that  during , 
the  wide-spread  anti-Jewish  feeling  in  and  after  the  latter 
years  of  Hadrian,  an  effort  had  been  made  to  identify 
the  weekly  division  of  time  with  heathenism,  or  at  least 
to  relieve  it  somewhat  from  Jewish  associations,  by  a 
nomenclature  borrowed  from  planets  named  after  heathen 
deities.  The  adoption  of  this  nomenclature  at  Eome  — 
by  the  ruling  class  doubtless  —  as  a  national  custom, 
notwithstanding  its  origin  among  Greeks,  strongly  fa- 
vors the  above  surmise. 

In  Asia  the  rebellion  under  Hadrian  did  not,  to  the 
same  extent  as  in  Europe,  abolish  respect  for  Jewish 
institutions.  In  North  Africa  the  remains  of  this  respect, 
even  when  vehemently  shaken  off  by  some  Christians, 
are  visible  among  heafciiens.^^ 

Were  we  to  stop  here,  the  nomenclature  of  days  would 
seem  to  have  originated  exclusively  among  heathens,  but 
the  name  of  Saturn  was  connected  with  the  seventh  day 
at  least  one  hundred  and  i\ity  or  two  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  rebellion  under  Hadrian.  Tibullus,  a  cotempo- 
rary  of  Virgil,  uses  the  phrase  dai/  of  Saturn}'^  and  the 
prominence  given  to  Saturn  in  the  Erythraean  verses, 
B.  c.  76,  renders  probable  that  already  at  that  date  the 
name  of  this  planet  was  connected  with  the  seventh  day.^^ 

1"  Tertul.  Alwl.  c.  16,  and  Ad  Nat.  1,  13. 

11  TertuUian  speaks  of  persons,  heathens  doubtless,  who  "  devote  the 
Day  of  Saturn  to  ease  and  eating  ;  living  outside  of  Jewish  custom,  which 
they  ignore."  —  Apol.  c.  16.  Elsewhere  {Ad  Nat.  1,  13)  he  mentions 
heathens  who  made  the  same  use  of  Sunday. 

^^  Tibullus,  Eleg.  1,  3,  18. 

1^  On  the  above  supposition  the  writer  of  the  Erythraean  verses  would 
have  had  a  motive  for  inventing  the  idea  that  Saturn  was  the  first  king 
of  Italy,  namely,  that  its  inhabitants,  for  whom  he  was  writing,  might, 
as  advocates  of  Ancient  Custom,  give  special  attention  to  the  day  of 
their  first  king.  Compare  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  49.  Were  there 
evidence  that  Saturn  had  been  regarded  earlier  than  B.  c.  76  as  the  first 
king  of  Italy,  then  it  would  on  the  other  hand  become  a  fair  question 
whether  the  Erythrrean  writer  had  not  invented  the  term  Day  of  Saturn, 
since  our  first  mention  of  it  comes  from  Italy. 


70  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  IV. 

Possibly  some  Jew,  or  school  of  Jews,  may,  at  a  yet 
earlier  date,  have  endeavored  to  create  reverence  among 
Heathens  for  the  sabbath  by  associating  it  with  that 
planet,  which  moved  (according  to  the  Alexandrine  system) 
in  the  highest  or  seventh  heaven  ;  i*  the  heaven,  according 
at  least  to  some  Alexandrine  Jews,  in  which  dwelt  the 
Supreme  Being. 

In  a  Jewish  mind,  the  first  day  of  the  week  could  read- 
ily be  associated  with  the  sun  by  the  statement.  Genesis, 
1,  3,  "  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light." 

§  III.    LorcVs  Day. 

The  substitution  by  some  Christians,  about  A.  D.  52  or 
53,  of  the  first  for  the  seventh  day  as  one  of  religious 
gathering,  will  be  considered  in  Ch.  VIII.  §  v. 

Christians  may  in  the  first  century  have  called  the  first 
day  of  the  week  the  Lord's  day  ;  but  the  earliest  certain 
evidence  of  such  use  is  in  the  latter  part  of  tlie  second 
century.^^  Jewish  habits  of  merely  numbering  the  days 
retained,  until  at  least  the  fourth  century,  sucli  promi- 
nence as  to  be  recognized  in  imperial  edicts.^*^ 

1*  Tacitus,  after  mentioning  one  reason  why  Jews  rested  on  the  sev- 
enth day,  adds  :  "Others  [allege]  that  honor  to  have  been  intended  for 
Saturn  .  .  .  because  among  the  seven  stai's  [sun,  moon,  and  five  planets] 
by  which  mortals  are  governed,  the  star  of  Saturn  moves  in  the  highest 
orbit." — Tacitus,  Hist.  5,  4. 

1^  See  Dionysius  of  Corinth  (quoted  by  Eusebius,  Ecc.  Hist.  4, 23),  and 
yet  later,  Tertullian,  De  Idol.  c.  14  ;  De  Corona  Mil.  c.  3  ;  De  Orat.  c.  18. 

Luke  and  Paul  retain  (Acts,  20,  7;  1  Cor.  16,  -2)  the  Jewish  phraseology. 
The  Apocalypse  (1,  10)  in  all  probability  uses  KvpidK-q,  Day  of  the  Lord, 
for  the  day  of  his  second  coming.  The  same  use  by  Melito  (Euseb.  Ecc. 
Hist.  4,  -us)  is  also  probable.  Compare  Ch.  IX.  note  20.  In  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  a  Christian  epithet  for  the  first  day  of  the  week,  at 
least  among  semi- Jewish  Christians,  was  "the  Eighth  day."  See  Epistle 
of  Barnalias,  c.  l.j  ;  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  cc.  24,  41. 

1"  Suicer  in  his  Thesaurus  Ecclesiastic  us,  2,  183,  col.  2  (2d.  edit.), 
under  the;  article  KvptaK-q,  quotes  the  statement  of  Nicephorus  (Book  7, 40), 
"The  day  which  Jews  called  'the  first'  and  which  Greeks  [heatiiens  ?] 
affixed  to  the  sun,  he  [Constantine]  named  [legally  ?]  the  Lord's  day." 
Compare  other  quotations  on  the  same  page. 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  71 

CHAPTER  V. 

AFFILIATED    QUESTIONS. 

§  I.    Puhlic  Games. 

In  times  of  political  and  theological  strife  questions 
not  necessarily  connected  with  either  are  apt  to  become 
involved  and  occupy  prominent  places.  Some  such,  in 
the  conflict  at  Eome,  are  important  enough  to  claim  dis- 
tinct headings. 

First  on  the  list  stand  the  public  games,  which  effected 
more  than  any  other  institution  towards  demoralizing  and 
brutalizing  the  Roman  mind.  The  senatorial  faction  at 
Rome  identified  itself  with  these  brutalities.  Whenever, 
during  the  period  discussed  in  these  pages,  aristocracy 
and  heathenism  were  dominant,  the  games  became  out- 
rages on  humanity.  When  the  popular  and  monotheistic 
party  had  ascendency,  the  taking  of  life  in  them  was 
usually  prohibited,  even  if  the  games  were  not  abolished. 
Aristocratic  leanings  in  this  respect  can  be  explained 
partly  by  the  j^retext  which  it  afforded  individuals  for 
filling  their  pockets  at  expense  of  the  provinces,  and 
partly  by  a  fear  of  Judaism  and  a  consequent  desire  to 
oppose  all  its  teachings.  Judaism  repudiated  barbarous 
amusements.^  Opposition  to  Judaism  made  the  patri- 
cian party  advocate  them.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
patrician,  rather  than  the  popular,  party  should  have  up- 
held brutality  in  the  games,  save  the  different  relation  in 
which  it  stood  to  monotheism. 

Although  party  lines  on  this  subject  may  not  have  been 
stringently  drawn  before  the  time  of  Augustus,  yet  their 
respective  leanings  can  be  discerned  earlier.  When  the 
patrician  plunderer  Flaccus  was  succeeded,  in  B.  c.  61,  as 
governor  over  a  part  of  Asia  Minor  by  Quintus  Cicero,  a 
member  of  the  popular  party,  public  games  were  at  once 

1  See  Josephus,  Antiq.  15,  8,  1,  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  26. 


72  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

abolished.2  Julius  Caesar,  the  popular  leader,  was  not 
overly  tender  of  human  life,  but  it  deserves  note  perhaps 
that  he  ordinarily  manifested  but  little  interest  in  these 
games.^ 

During  the  reign  of  Augustus  rival  influences  con- 
flicted violently  in  the  community.  Monotheism,  moral 
reform,  and  popular  rights  were  gradually  gaining  strength. 
Patrician  privileges  and  ancient  usages,  by  a  resort  to 
fraud  and  violence,  obtained,  in  B.  c.  17,  exclusive  control 
of  the  Senate.  Augustus,  for  no  small  portion  of  his 
reign,  became  an  instrument  of  reactionaries,  and  therefore 
public  games  were  in  vogue.'*     If  the  date  of  his  differ- 


2  Cicero  writes  to  liis  brother  Quintus  :  ' '  How  great  a  benefit  have 
you  conferred  by  freeing  Asia,  in  spite  of  our  intense  grudge,  from  the 
unjust  and  onerous  iEdilitiau  tribute  [for  public  games],  since  if  one  of 
the  nobility  openly  complains  that  by  your  edict,  '  No  money  shall 
BE  APPROPRIATED  TO  GAMES,'  you  have  deprived  him  of  two  hundred 
thousand  sesterces,  what  an  amount  would  be  paid  if,  as  had  become 
customary,  exactions  should  be  made  in  the  name  of  all  who  exhibit 
games  at  Rome!  "  —  Cicero,  Epist.  ad  Fratrem,  1,  l  ;  Vol.  3,  511. 

Cicero  in  his  Laivs  seems  to  fluctuate  between  forbidding  personal  con- 
flicts in  the  public  games  {Dc  Leg.  2,  !i)  and  forbidding  only  such  {De 
Lcrj.  2,  15)  as  imperilled  life.  His  views  on  this  point  may  have  been 
among  the  heresies  for  which,  at  a  later  date,  the  heathen  party  wished 
to  burn  his  writings. 

3  Caesar  conformed  to  custom  by  exhibiting  games  (Sueton.  Ccesar, 
c.  39)  in  which,  on  the  occasion,  at  least,  of  his  triumph,  life  must  have 
been  imperilled  if  not  lost.  He  himself  usually  took  so  little  interest  in 
them  as  to  attend  to  ordinary  business  during  their  performance  (Sue- 
ton.  Auguft.  c.  45),  incurring  no  little  blame  thereby.  Yet  his  triumphal 
games  vied  with  patrieianism  in  expense  and,  if  the  account  by  Dio 
Cassius  (43,  23,  24)  be  correct,  in  murderousness.  If  so,  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  censure,  said  to  have  been  bestowed  on  him,  may  have 
come  from  enlightened  men  of  his  own  party,  and  may  have  aided  in  pre- 
venting a  repetition  of  such  folly  and  barbarity.  Tlie  real,  or  sham, 
battle  on  that  occasion  was  performed  on  each  side  by  five  hundred  foot, 
twenty  elephants,  and  thirty  horse.     Sueton.  Ccesar,  c.  39. 

*  "In  the  number,  variety,  and  magnificence  of  his  public  spectacles 
he  surpassed  all  former  example.  Four-and-twenty  times,  he  says,  he 
treated  the   people  with  games  upon  his  own  account,  and  three-and- 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  73 

ent  ordinances  concerning  tliem  could  be  determined,^  a 

twenty  times  for  such  magistrates  as  were  either  absent  or  not  able  to 
afford  the  expense.  The  performances  took  place  sometimes  in  the  differ- 
ent streets  of  the  city,  and  upon  several  stages,  by  players  in  all  lan- 
guages. The  same  he  did  not  only  in  the  forum  and  amphitheatre,  but 
in  the  circus  likewise,  and  in  the  septa ;  and  sometimes  he  exhibited 
only  the  hunting  of  wild  beasts.  He  entertained  the  people  with 
wrestlers  in  the  Campus  Martins,  where  wooden  seats  were  erected  for  the 
purpose  ;  and  also  with  a  naval  fight,  for  which  he  excavated  the  ground 
near  the  Tiber,  where  there  is  now  the  grove  of  the  Ciesars.  During 
these  two  entertainments  he  stationed  guards  in  the  city  lest,  by  robbers 
taking  advantage  of  the  small  number  of  people  left  at  home,  it  might 
be  exposed  to  depredations.  In  the  circus  he  exhibited  chariot  and  foot 
races,  and  combats  with  wild  beasts,  in  which  the  performers  were  often 
youths  of  the  highest  rank.  His  favorite  spectacle  was  the  Trojan  game, 
acted  by  a  select  number  of  boys,  in  parties  differing  in  age  and  station  ; 
thinking  that  it  was  a  practice  both  excellent  in  itself,  and  sanctioned 
BY  ANCIENT  USAGE,  that  the  spirit  of  the  young  nobles  should  be  dis- 
jdayed  in  such  exercises.  Caius  Nonius  Asprenus,  who  was  lamed  by  a 
fall  in  this  diversion,  he  presented  with  a  gold  collar,  and  allowed  him 
and  his  posterity  to  bear  the  surname  of  Torquati.  But  soon  afterwards 
he  gave  up  the  exhibition  of  this  game,  in  consequence  of  a  severe  and 
bitter  speech  made  in  the  Senate  by  Asinius  PoUio,  the  orator,  in  which 
he  complained  bitterly  of  the  misfortune  of  iEserninus,  his  grandson,  who 
likewise  broke  his  leg  in  the  same  diversion."  —  Sueton.  Aurfust.  c.  43, 
Bohn's  trans.  "  He  took  particular  pleasure  in  witnessing  pugilistic  con- 
tests, especially  those  of  the  Latins,  not  only  between  combatants  who 
had  been  trained  scientifically,  whom  he  used  often  to  match  with  the 
Greek  champions,  but  even  between  mobs  of  the  lower  classes  fighting 
in  the  streets,  and  tilting  at  random  without  any  knowledge  of  the  art. 
In  short,  he  honored  with  his  patronage  all  sorts  of  people  who  con- 
tributed in  any  way  to  the  success  of  the  public  entertainments.  He  not 
only  maintained,  but  enlarged,  the  privileges  of  the  wrestlers." —  Sne- 
ton.  Aug  list.  c.  45,  Bohn's  trans.  Asinius  PoUio,  mentioned  in  the  first  of 
the  foregoing  extracts,  was  the  host  of  Herod's  two  sons  (Josephus,  Antiq. 
15,  10,  1),  and  the  person  to  whom  Virgil  addressed  his  partly  Messianic 
eclogue.  His  relations  to  the  anti-senatorial  party  were  such,  that  he 
refused  to  accompany  Augustus  in  the  war  against  Antony.  He  founded 
the  earliest  public  library  at  Rome,  and  believed,  apparently,  in  a  culture 
different  from  that  of  public  games.  The  accident  to  his  grandson  was 
the  occasion,  more  probably  than  the  motive,  for  his  utterance. 

*  "  He  prohibited  combats  of  gladiators  where  no  quarter  was  given. 


74  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V, 

more  reliable  opinion  might  be  formed  as  to  whether  the 
humaner  ones  were  occasioned  by  influence  of  his  step- 
son Tiberius,  which  weighed  much  with  him  during  his 
later  years,  or  whether  public  opinion,  aiding  his  better 
impulses,  had  elicited  them. 

Tiberius  believed  in  human  rights  and  human  improve- 
ment, not  in  patrician  privileges.  From  him  brutalizing 
amusements  found  no  favor.^ 

He  deprived  the  magistrates  of  the  power  of  correcting  the  stage-players, 
which  by  an  ancient  law  was  allowed  them  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  ; 
restricting  their  jurisdiction  entirely  to  the  time  of  performance  and  mis- 
demeanors in  the  theatres.  He  would,  however,  admit  of  no  abatement, 
and  exacted  with  the  utmost  rigor  the  greatest  exertions  of  the  wrestlers 
and  gladiators  in  their  several  encounters."  —  Sueton.  August,  c.  45, 
Bohn's  trans. 

^  Touching  theatrical  performances  in  A.  D.  14,  when  Tilierius  had  just 
come  to  the  throne,  Tacitus  says  :  "Augustus  .  .  .  had  no  distaste  for 
such  pursuits,  and  deemed  it  courteous  (or  perhaps  deemed  it  '  a  Roman's 
duty '  civile)  to  mingle  in  pleasures  of  the  common  people.  The  habits 
of  Tiberius  followed  a  different  path ;  but  he  did  not,  as  yet,  dare  to  turn 
towards  more  earnest  pursuits  a  people  who  had  been  indulged  during 
so  many  years."  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  54.  In  the  year  A.  D.  15  "certain 
knights  being  desirous  of  fighting  a  duel  in  the  combats  which  Drusus 
gave  in  behalf  of  himself  and  Germanicus,  (Tiberius)  did  not  witness 
the  fight,  and  when  one  was  killed,  he  forbade  the  other  any  further  fight- 
ing with  weapons."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  14.  "Drusus  presided  in  the 
gladiatorial  contests  which  he  gave  in  his  own  name  and  and  in  that  of 
his  brother  Germanicus,  manifesting  too  much  satisfaction  in  bloody 
fights,  though  between  persons  of  the  lower  classes,  for  which  .  .  .  his 
father  [Tiberius]  is  said  to  have  reproved  him.  Why  [Tiberius]  himself 
abstained  from  the  .show  is  variously  interpreted  ;  .  .  .  some  attributed  it 
to  distaste  for  pleasure,  tristiti  a  ingenii,  and  fear  of  comparison,  because 
Augustus  liked  to  associate  in  such  places."  ^ — Tacitus,  An.  1,  76.  No 
other  instance  of  such  a  tendency  in  Drusus  is  mentioned  by  any  one. 
In  the  year  A.  D.  27  "a  certain  Atilius,  of  the  freedman  class,  having 
begun  an  amphitheatre  at  Fidcmfe,  wherein  to  exhibit  a  gladiatorial  show, 
.  .  .  those  who  were  greedy  of  such  things  flocked  tliither,  becau.se 
debarred  from  [such]  amusements  [at  Rome]  under  the  reign  of  Tiberius." 
—  Tacitus,  An.  4,  G-2.  Tiberius  "  having  given  his  opinion  that  per- 
mission should  be  granted  the  Trebians  for  transferring,  towards  the  con- 
struction of  a  road,  money  which  had  been  left  by  will  for  a  new  theatre. 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  75 

Caligula,  though  his  father  and  subsequently  his  mother 
had  been  leaders  of  the  patrician  party,  and  though  he 
may  for  a  time  have  hoped  to  live  in  peace  with  it,  did 
not  share  its  views.  His  education  by  Tiberius  had  ren- 
dered brutal  amusements  repugnant  to  him,  and  when 
an  occasion  called  for  it  he  uttered  this  repugnance  in 
unmistakable  terms.'^ 

With  the  accession  of  Claudius,  patricianism  obtained 
complete  control.  Murder  in  the  public  games  became 
a  daily  amusement;^  and  Seneca,  who  expressed  him- 
self strongly  on  the  subject,^  was  banished.     He  may,  in 

could  not  obtain  the  permission.  The  vote  happened  to  be  taken  by  a 
division.  He  went  to  the  side  of  the  minority,  and  no  one  followed 
him."  —  Sueton.  Tiber,  c.  31. 

^  When  live  men  were  killed  in  the  public  games,  Caligula,  "in  a  pub- 
lished edict,  deplored  the  slaughter,  and  execrated  those  who  had  en- 
dured to  look  at  it."  —  Sueton.    Calig.  c.  30. 

*  Claudius  "instituted  constantly  single  fights;  for  he  took  such 
pleasure  in  them  as  to  have  a  fault  in  this  direction.  Very  few  beasts 
were  destroyed,  but  many  men,  some  being  killed  in  fighting  against 
each  other,  and  some  by  wild  beasts.  He  had  a  terrible  dislike  for  the 
slaves  and  freedmen,  who  under  Tiberius  and  Caligula  had  plotted 
against  their  masters,  as  also  for  such  as  had  carelessly  calumniated,  or 
had  borne  false  witness  against  any.  He  punished  most  of  them  in  the 
above  manner,  and  others  in  some  different  way.  He  also  delivered 
many  to  their  masters  for  punishment.  The  number  of  those  who  died 
in  public  was  so  great,  that  the  statue  of  Augustus,  there  located,  was 
moved  elsewhere,  that  it  might  neither  be  regarded  as  constantly  in  the 
sight  of  murder  nor  [have  to]  be  constantly  veiled. "  —  Dio  Cass. 
60,  13. 

The  last  sentence  is  a  fair  illustration  of  heathen  views.  Even  a  mur- 
derer who  fled  to  a  shrine  could  not,  witliout  insult  to  the  god,  be  either 
punished  there  or  removed,  but  a  covering  to  his  eyes  prevented  his 
knowledge  of  what  was  transpiring. 

Claudius  "took  chief  pleasure  in  witnessing  those  who  were  cut  down 
at  the  middle  of  the  performance,  about  dinner-time  ;  although  he  had 
a  lion  killed  which  had  been  taught  (?)  to  eat  human  beings,  and 
which,  on  that  account,  was  a  special  favorite  with  the  multitude,—  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  not  fitting  for  Romans  to  look  upon  such  a  spec- 
tacle." —  Dio  Cass.  60,  13. 

®  "Nothing  is  so  injurious  to  good  morals  as  to  take  a  seat  in  one  of 


76  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V, 

other  respects  than  as  regarded  his  views  of  such  amuse- 
ment, liave  been  deemed  an  unfaithful  patrician. ^'^ 

Single  combats  were,  in  the  beginning  of  this  reign,  a 
favorite  method  of  murdering  slaves  who  had  willingly, 
or  by  compulsion,  testified  against  their  masters.  The 
aristocracy  had,  during  their  revolt  under  Tiberius,  com- 
mitted many  murders,  and  had,  during  Caligula's  time, 
planned,  if  not  perpetrated,  others.  Whoever  brought 
action  against  them  could  take  the  evidence  of  their 
slaves  by  torture.  The  Eoman  law  subjected  these  un- 
fortunates to  torture  for  the  purpose  of  eliciting  truth ; 

our  public  exhibitions  ;  for  at  such  times  vices,  because  mingled  with 
amusement,  creep  in  readily.  ...  By  chance,  I  happened  into  the  mid- 
day exhibition,  expecting  plays  and  witticisms,  and  some  relaxation 
wherewith  men  might  rest  from  the  sight  of  human  gore.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  previous  lighting  was  merciful  [in  comparison].  Now,  trifles 
laid  aside,  we  have  the  merest  homicides.  The  men  have  no  protection  ; 
their  whole  bodies  are  exposed  ;  no  blow  is  in  vain.  Most  persons  pre- 
fer this  to  the  ordinary,  or  extraordinary,  matches,  ordinariis  paribus  el 
'postulatitiis.  .  .  .  The  end  of  the  fighters  is  death.  Sword  and  fire  are 
used  [to  drive  combatants  on].  These  things  continue  till  the  arena  be 
empty.  But  some  one  [you  say]  has  committed  robbery.  AVhat  then  ? 
He  has  deserved  to  be  hung.  He  has  [you  say]  killed  a  man.  The 
murderer  deserves  this  suftering.  But  what  have  yon  deserved,  miser- 
able man,  that  you  should  [have  to]  look  on  ?  Kill,  strike,  burn  [him]. 
Why  is  he  so  timid  to  rush  against  the  sword  ?  Why  so  void  of  au- 
dacity to  kill  ?  Wh}'  so  unwilling  to  die  ?  By  blows  they  are  driven 
against  wounds,  that  they  may  receive  mutual  [sword]  cuts  in  their 
naked  and  op[tosed  bodies.  The  exhibition  is  intermitted.  In  the 
mean  time,  men  are  executed  lest  nothing  should  be  going  on.  .  .  . 
What  do  you  believe  that  the  result  will  be  to  the  morals  against  which 
a  public  attack  is  [thus]  made  ?  You  must  [if  present]  imitate  or  hate 
[what  is  going  on].  Either  is  to  be  avoided  ;  that  you  may  neither  be 
rendered  like  to  evil  men  because  of  their  number,  nor  an  enemy  to  the 
many  because  they  are  unlike  you.  Recede  into  yourself  as  much  as 
you  can.  Associate  with  those  who  will  improve  you.  Admit  [to  your 
society]  those  whom  you  can  improve."  —  Seneca,  Ej>isf.  7,  -J-T.  The 
exposure  to  wild  beasts,  Seneca  says  (Epist.  7,  u)  took  place  in  the 
forenoon. 

1°  The  assigned  cause  for  Seneca's  banishment  (Dio  Cass.  60,  >)  is  not 
credible. 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  77 

and  now  the  masters,  having  obtained  ascendency,  forced 
such  as  had  told  the  truth  to  murder  each  other  in  sight, 
and  for  the  gratification,  of  those  against  whom,  or  against 
whose  interests,  they  had  testified.  Had  the  spectators 
been  fiends,  tlie  congruity  between  them  and  the  spec- 
tacle would  have  been  perfect. 

In  the  year  44  the  siege  and  capture  of  a  town  was 
represented  in  the  Campus  Martius,^^  and  in  a.  d.  52, 
when  the  anti-Jewish  movement  culminated,  nineteen 
thousand  men  were  surrounded  by  military  forces  and 
compelled  for  hours,  in  a  naval  engagement,  to  maim  and 
kill  each  other. ^^     The  apologists  of  patricianism  assert 

"  Claudius  "exhibited  in  the  Campus  Martius  a  siege  and  capture  of 
a  town  to  represent  warlike  doings  and  the  surrender  of  the  British 
kings."  —  Sueton.  Claud,  c.  21.     Compare  Dio  Cass.  60,  23. 

12  "About  the  same  time,  a  passage  having  been  cut  through  the 
mountain  between  the  Lake  Fucinus  and  the  river  Liris,  that  a  greater 
number  of  persons  might  be  induced  to  come  and  see  the  magnificence  of 
the  work,  a  sea-fight  was  got  uji  on  the  lake  itself,  in  the  same  manner 
as  Augustus  before  exhibited  one  upon  an  artificial  pool  on  this  side  the 
Tiber,  but  with  light  ships  and  fewer  men.  Claudius  equipped  galleys 
of  three  and  four  banks  of  oars,  and  manned  them  with  nineteen  thou- 
sand mariners,  surrounding  the  space  with  a  line  of  rafts,  to  limit  the 
means  of  escape,  but  giving  room  enough,  in  its  circuit,  to  ply  the  oars, 
for  the  pilots  to  exert  their  skill,  for  the  ships  to  be  brought  to  bear 
down  upon  each  other,  and  for  all  the  usual  operations  in  a  sea-fight. 
Upon  the  rafts,  parties  of  the  pretorian  guards,  foot  and  horse,  were 
stationed,  with  bulwarks  before  them,  from  which  catapults  and  balistas 
might  be  worked  ;  the  rest  of  the  lake  was  occupied  by  marine  forces, 
stationed  on  decked  ships.  The  shores,  the  adjacent  hills,  and  the  tops 
of  the  mountains  were  crowded  with  a  countless  multitude,  many  from 
the  neighboring  towns,  others  from  Rome  itself ;  impelled  either  by  de- 
sire to  witness  the  spectacle,  or  in  compliment  to  the  prince,  and 
exhibited  the  appearance  of  a  vast  theatre.  The  Emperor  presided,  in  a 
superb  coat  of  mail,  and,  not  far  from  him,  Agrippina,  in  a  mantle  of 
cloth  of  gold.  The  battle,  though  between  malefactors,  was  fought  with 
the  spirit  of  brave  men  ;  and,  after  a  great  eff'usion  of  blood,  they  were 
excused  from  pursuing  the  carnage  to  extremity. 

"  When  the  spectacle  was  concluded,  the  channel  through  which  the 
water  passed  off  was  exhibited  to  view,  when  the  negligence  of  the  work- 


78  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  V. 

these  men  to  have  been  all  malefactors,  —  a  statement 
implying  that  the  mass  of  evil-doers  understood  marine 
warfare.  It  is  unworthy  of  credence.  The  alleged  object 
for  this  fight  —  namely,  to  increase  appreciation  of  an 
engineering  work  by  the  multitudes  who  should  be 
brought  together  —  is  a  transparent  absurdity.  I*arty 
feeling  and  self-glorification  planned  it.  The  comba- 
tants must  have  been  largely  sailors  and  soldiers  from  the 
popular  party.  Public  men  who  absented  themselves 
would  undoubtedly  have  incurred  the  charge  of  disloy- 
alty to  those  in  power.  The  intended  victims  hoped, 
even  at  the  last  moment,  that  such  l)utchery  would  not 
be  persisted  in,  and  the  Emperor  had  his  own  difficulties  to 
make  them  fight.^^  Some  smaller  exhibitions  are  omit- 
ted.i4 

With  the  accession  of  Nero,  a  reaction  took  place 
against  patricianism.  This  may  have  commenced  ear- 
lier,^^  but  it  now  had  power  to  control  the  administra- 

men  became  manifest,  as  the  work  was  not  carried  to  the  depth  of  the 
bottom  or  centre  of  the  lake.  The  excavations  were,  tlierefore,  after 
some  time,  extended  to  a  gi-eater  depth  ;  and,  to  draw  the  multitude 
once  more  together,  a  show  of  gladiators  was  exhibited  upon  bridges 
laid  over  it,  in  order  to  display  a  fight  of  infantrj'.  Moreover,  an  erec- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  a  banquet,  at  the  embouchure  of  the  lake, 
occasioned  great  alarm  to  the  whole  assembly,  for  the  force  of  the  water 
rushing  out,  carried  away  whatever  was  near  it,  shook  and  sundered 
what  was  more  distant,  or  terrified  the  guests  with  the  crash  and  noise. 
At  the  same  time,  Agrippina,  converting  the  Emperor's  alarm  to  her  pur- 
poses, charged  Narcissus,  the  director  of  the  work,  with  avarice  and 
robbery  ;  nor  did  Narcissus  suppress  his  indignation,  but  charged 
Agrippina  with  '  the  overbearing  spirit  of  her  sex,  and  with  extravagarit 
ambition.'"  —  Tacitus,  An.  12,  5fi,  .57,  Bohn's  trans.  The  squabble 
at  the  close  fairly  illustrates  the  kind  of  feeling  which  such  entertain- 
ments were  calculated  to  promote. 

13  Sueton.  Clmtd.   21. 

"  See  Dio  Cass.  60,  7,  13,  23  ;  Tac.  A71.  11,  11  ;  Sueton.  Claud,  c.  21. 

1^  The  recall  of  Seneca  in  A.  D.  49  may  have  been  owing  to  an  in- 
crease of  popular  indignation  at  his  exile.  Tacitus  attributes  it  {A71.  12, 
8),  very  improbably,  to  the  favor  of  Agripjiina,  wlio  seems  constantly  to 
have  been  his  opponent.     Tacitus  may  have  failed  to  see,  or  recoiled 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  79 

tion.  The  community  had  probably  become  disgusted 
with  shows  and  butcheries  instead  of  improvements. 
Seneca,  who  had  spent  most  of  the  preceding  reign  in 
exile,  was,  with  Burrhus,  placed  in  charge.  Some  time 
may  have  elapsed  before  the  new  administration  was 
able  to  commence  reforms,  but  when,  in  a.  d.  57,  a  new 
amphitheatre  had  been  finished,  orders  were  given  that 
none,  not  even  condemned  criminals,  should  be  killed 
in  the  gladiatorial  contests.^^  Magistrates  in  charge  of 
provinces  were  forbidden  to  exhibit  fights  of  gladiators 
or  of  wild  beasts.^''  The  reason  assigned  for  this  by  Taci- 
tus is  true,  but  is  only  a  part  of  the  truth.  Provincial 
magistrates,  in  the  preceding  reign,  had  fieeced  the  people, 
and  then  wished  the  credit  of  generosity  because  of  ex- 
hibitions which  were  not  only  demoralizing,  but  pecuni- 
arily onerous  to  those  whom  they  governed.  Moral 
sense  and  monotheistic  teaching  co-operated  with  pecun- 
iary interests  in  the  defeat  of  patricianism.  The  contest 
was  a  hard  one.  The  patricians  gained  a  point  on  the 
subject  of  slavery,  as  will  hereafter  appear.  The  new 
administration  may  have  confined  itself  to  remedying 
the  most  glaring  evils,  and  may  have  allowed  less  objec- 
tionable substitutes.  In  a.  d.  55  a  bull-fight,  resembling 
modern  Spanish  ones,  took  place.^^ 

Nero,  though  not  without  good  points,  had  defects  of 
character  which  must  have  seriously  interfered  with  most 
reforms.     The  Jewish  rebellion,  of  which  the  first  mut- 


from  saying,  that  the  patricians  had  cowered  before  popular  and  mono- 
theistic feeling. 

18  Tacitus  gives  the  date  in  his  Annals,  13,  31 ;  and  Suetonius  the 
facts  in  his  life  of  Nero,  c.  12. 

1^  "The  Emperor,  too,  issued  an  edict,  'that  no  procurator,  nor  any- 
other  magistrate,  who  had  obtained  any  province,  should  exhibit  a  spec- 
tacle of  gladiators  or  of  wild  beasts,  or  any  other  popular  entertainment 
whatsoever'  ;  for,  heretofore,  they  had  by  such  acts  of  munificence  no 
less  oppressed  those  under  their  jurisdiction,  than  by  extortion,  warding 
off  the  blame  of  their  guilty  excesses  by  the  arts  of  popularity."  —  Taci- 
tus, An.  13,  3],  Bohn's  trans. 

^^  "  Men  killed  bulls,  chasing  them  on  horseback." —  Dio  Cass.  61,  0, 


80  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  V. 

terings  were  heard  in  A.  D.  G4,  shortly  after  the  burning 
of  liome,  gave,  doubtless,  an  advantage  to  patrician  re- 
actionaries. 

Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius  were,  during  more  than  a 
year,  rival  contestants  for  the  throne,  and  were  succeeded 
by  Vespasian,  who  was  of  the  anti-patrician  party.  It 
is,  therefore,  no  matter  of  surprise  to  lind  all  mention  of 
public  games  in  his  reign  omitted  by  Suetonius,  and  but 
a  line  concerning  them  in  Dio.  "Vespasian  had  beasts 
killed  in  the  theatres,  but  took  no  great  pleasure  in  hu- 
man duels."  ^^ 

The  complying  disposition  of  Titus  subjected  him,  in 
more  respects  than  one,  to  the  patricians.  In  his  two 
years'  reign  human  duels  were  applauded  by  a  prince, 
though  not,  perhaps,  very  heartily .^'^ 

Domitian,  though  attentive  to  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  favoring  some  anti-patrician  reforms,  cannot 
have  had  special  scruples  about  public  games.^^  Had  his 
history  been  written  by  friends,  instead  of  by  enemies, 
we  could  determine  his  views  better. 

Nerva,  his  successor,  was  identified  with  the  popular 
and  monotheistic  party.  He  abolished  inhuman  amuse- 
ments.^ 

19  Dio  Cass.  66, 15. 

2''  "Having  dedicated  his  amphitheatre,  and  built  some  warm  baths 
close  by  it  with  great  expedition,  he  entertained  the  people  with  most 
magnificent  spectacles.  He  likewise  exhibited  a  naval  fight  in  the  old 
Naumachia,  besides  a  combat  of  gladiators  ;  and  in  one  day  brought 
into  the  theatre  five  thousand  wild  beasts  of  all  kinds."  —  Sueton. 
Tiius,  c.  7,  Bohn's  trans.  "  He  treated  the  people  on  all  occasions  with  so 
much  courtesy,  that,  on  his  presenting  them  with  a  show  of  gladiators, 
he  declared,  '  He  should  manage  it,  not  according  to  his  own  fancy,  but 
that  of  the  spectators,'  and  did  accordingly.  He  denied  them  nothing, 
and  very  frankly  encouraged  them  to  ask  what  they  pleased.  Espousing 
the  cause  of  the  Thracian  party  among  the  gladiators,  he  frequently 
joined  in  the  popular  demonstrations  in  their  favor,  but  without  compro- 
mising his  dignity  or  doing  injustice."— Sueton.  TUus,  c.  8,  Bohn's 
trans.  "  At  the  close  of  the  public  spectacles  he  wept  bitterly  in  the 
presence  of  the  people."  —  Sueton.  Titus,  c.  10,  Bohn's  trans. 

21  See  Sueton.  Domit.  4. 

22  In  Sturz's  Dio  Cassius,  Vol.  6,  p.  500,  note  13,  appended  to  Book 


§1.]  PUBLIC   GAMES.  81 

Trajan,  who  followed  him,  was  a  representative  of  pa- 
trician interests.  Under  him,  games  again  equalled  or 
exceeded  in  atrocity  those  under  Claudius.^-^ 

Hadrian  can  scarcely  be  classified  with  either  party. 
Gladiatorial  contests  were  not  prominent  nor  prohibited 
in  his  reign.-^ 

Antoninus  Pius  was  a  thoughtfully  conscientious  man, 
averse  to  more  than  one  patrician  hobby,  if  we  can  judge 
from  a  brief  historical  sketch  by  Capitolinus.  His  biog- 
rapher mentions  shows  of  rare  wild  beasts,^^  but  says 
nothing  of  killing  men  for  amusement,  and  a  quoted 
saying  of  his  renders  improbable  that  he  permitted  it.^^ 

Marc  Antonine  had  a  Stoic  education  and  patrician 
surroundings.  He  compromised  his  conscience  by  per- 
mitting some  cruelties  alien  to  his  feelings,^''  but  he  fur- 
nished gladiators  with  bloodless  weapons  for  their  con- 
tests when  he  was  present. ^^ 

In  the  days  of  Augustus,  Claudius,  Trajan,  and  ]\Iarc 
Antonine,  the  party  in  power,  the  party  with  which  the 
prince  usually  co-operated,  were  obviously  advocates  of 
these  demoralizing   shows.      That  party  had   created   a 

68,  are  the  following  extracts  :  "  By  this  Emperor  (Nerva)  the  single  fights 
and  shows  of  them  were  forbidden." — Zonaras,  p.  538,  D.  "  During 
this  time  gladiators  were  prohibited  and  [also]  shows  of  them,  and  in  their 
place  hunts  as  a  show  were  invented."  — Chronicon  Paschale,  under 
A.  D.  97.  According  to  Dio  Cassius,  68,  2,  Nerva  "abolished  many- 
sacrifices,  many  Circensian  games,  and  some  other  public  spectacles, 
doing  away  expenses  so  far  as  possible." 

^  See  in  note  58  of  Ch.  X.  details  from  Dio  Cassius,  68,  l."). 

^*  Hadrian  "exhibited  a  gladiatorial  contest  through  six  successive 
days.  .  .  .  He  rejected  Circensian  games  voted  to  him,  except  those  for 
his  birthday."  —  Spartianus,  Adrian.  7,  8. 

^  Capitolinus,  Antonin.  Pius,  c.  9;  Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  36. 

^  "  He  said  :  He  would  rather  save  one  citizen  than  kill  a  thousand 
enemies."  —  Capitolinus,  Antonin.  Pius,  c.  9  ;  Script.  Hist.  Aug.  p.  35. 

27  See  extract  from  Dio  Cass.  71,  29,  in  note  9  of  Ch.  XII. 

^  "Marcus  took  so  little  pleasure  in  killings,  that  he  would  [only]  be 
present  at  the  contests  of  gladiators  in  Eome  [when]  fighting  as  did 
athletes  witliout  peril  [of  life],  for  he  never  gave  any  of  them  sharp 
weapons."  —  Dio  Cass.  71,  29. 

F 


82  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

class  feeling  in  favor  of  them  which  its  individual  mem- 
bers did  not  openly  and  decidedly  dare  to  oppose,  though 
some  of  them  in  private  uttered  their  disapprobation.^^ 
The  censure  of  public  games  by  Tacitus,  even  if  indirect, 
implies  that  a  portion  of  patricians  were  dissatisfied  with 
them.  He  would  otherwise  have  been  obsequiously  si- 
lent. That  a  mob  favored  customary  amusements  is  a 
matter  of  course. 

§  II.    War. 

A  study  of  the  two  centuries  included  in  this  work 
shows  that  foreio,!!  wars  were  far  more  common  under 
patrician  rule  than  during  the  reigns  of  non-patrician  or 
anti-patrician  princes.  The  reigns  of  Augustus,  Claudius, 
Trajan,  and  Marc  Antonine,  especially  that  of  Trajan, 
were  soiled  in  this  way.  The  reign  of  Tiberius  was  re- 
markably peaceful.  Caligula,  Nero,  Vespasian,  and  other 
Emperors,  under  whom  the  aristocracy  failed  of  control, 
were,  to  a  fair  degree,  free  from  external  war.  This  was 
due  to  two  causes.  The  moral  objections  to  war  had  a 
more  recognized  standing  in  the  party  which  was  allied 
with  monotheism,^°  and  this  same  party,  the  popular  one, 

29  See  letter  of  Pliny,  Jiin.,  in  Ch.  X.  note  59. 

30  «<  \ye  restrain  homicides  and  individual  murder.  What  [do  we  con- 
cerning] wars  and  the  glorious  wickedness  of  slaughtered  nations  ?  .  .  . 
The  very  things  for  which,  if  men  committed  them  as  individuals,  they 
would  be  capitally  punished,  we  praise  because  they  performed  them 
palitdafiin  a  general's  uniform  [or,  more  literally,  in  a  general's  cloak]." 
—  Seneca,  J^pist.  95,  31;  Ojyp.  Philos.  4,  115.  "Listen  to  another 
question.  How  shall  we  deal  with  men  ?  What  shall  we  do,  what  pre- 
cepts shall  we  give,  that  we  may  spare  human  blood  ?  How  important  is 
it  not  to  injure  him  whom  you  ought  to  benefit  !  It  deserves  great  praise 
if  a  man  be  gentle  towards  men.  Shall  we  command,  that  man  extend 
his  hand  to  the  shipwrecked,  point  the  way  to  the  erring,  share  his  bread 
with  tlie  hungry  ?  How  long  should  1  need  for  the  enumeration  of  all 
things  which  are  to  be  done  and  avoided  ?  Yet  I  can  deliver  him  in  brief 
this  formula  of  human  duty.  'The  universe  which  you  see,  embrac- 
ing things  divine  and  human,  is  a  unit.  We  are  members  of  one  great 
body.  Nature  made  lis  relatives.'"  —  Seneca,  Epist.  95,  .'51,  T>1 ;  0pp.  4, 
123.     On  sharing  bread  with  the  hungry,  compare  Job,  22,  7  ;  Prov.  25, 


§m.]  ANNEXATION  AND  DISINTEGRATION.  83 

bore,  in  case  of  war,  the  most  of  its  burdens,  while  its 
emoluments  inured  to  the  privileged  classes.^^  It  may 
have  been  partly  on  this  account  that  when  effort  was 
made  to  substitute  a  senatorial  for  a  non-senatorial  prince, 
the  common  soldiers  (see  §  ix.)  were  found,  or  deemed  to 
be,  obstacles  in  the  way. 

Cicero  in  his  De  RepuUica,  written  in  defence  of  patri- 
cian views,  makes  the  elder  Scipio  appear  in  a  dream  to 
his  grandson  and  assure  him  that  there  was  in  heaven  a 
place  allotted  to  such  as  augmented  the  national  terri- 
tory.^ 

§  III.   Annexation  and  Disintcgi^ation. 

In  order  to  understand  the  senatorial  position  on  con- 
version of  dependent  or  independent  kingdoms  into  Eo- 
man  provinces,  and  reconverting  the  same  into  dependent 
kingdoms,  we  must  study  a  division  of  provinces  made  in 
the  time  of  Augustus  between  the  Emperor  and  Sen- 
ate.^ The  latter  wished  increase  of  its  own  power  and 
emoluments  rather  than  of  the  Emperor's.  Consequently 
it  favored  annexation  when  hoping  an  increase  of  its  own 
domain,^*  and  favored  disintegration  when  anxious  to  de- 

21 ;  Is.  58,  7  and  10 ;  Ezek.  18,  7  and  IG.  On  the  membership  of  one 
body,  compare  1  Cor.  12, 12,  -in,  27  (a  new  application,  perhaps,  of  Jew- 
ish teaching),  and  an  extract  fi'ora  Sandars,  hereafter  to  be  given  in  Ch. 
VII.  note  89. 

*i  At  the  death  of  Augustus  common  soldiers  had  been  kept  in  service 
(Tacitus,  An.  1,  35)  for  thirty  years.  This  was  soon  mitigated  when 
Tiberius  became  Emperor.  The  privileged  classes,  from  whom  the  officers 
were  chiefly  taken,  had,  on  the  other  hand,  many  ways  of  filling  their 
pockets  by  contracts  or  robbery  during  war  time.  The  absence  of  news- 
papers rendered  exposure  of  fraud  more  difficult. 

32  Cicero,  De  EcTpul.  6,  7  ;  Opi^.  Philos.  5,  37.")  (Greek  text,  c.  3  ;  0pp. 
Philos.  5,  408.)     Compare  extract  in  Ch.  VII.  note  23. 

^  Dio  Cassius  (53,  12)  enumerates  the  provinces  which  in  B.  c.  27 
were  under  senatorial  and  those  which  were  under  imperial  control. 

^  A  somewhat  similar  condition  of  things  existed  for  a  time  in  our 
own  country.  The  slaveholders  at  the  South  wished  annexation  of 
territory  to  their  own  section,  that  their  political  power  might  be  in- 
creased. They  manifested  no  such  desire  to  increase  the  area  of  the 
Northern  non-slaveholdhis  States. 


84  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  V. 

tract  from  that  of  the  Emperor  in  behalf  of  its  own  coad- 
jutors.^°  The  instances  of  voluntary  annexation,  or  of 
unsuccessful  requests  for  it  by  communities,  seem  always 
to  have  affected  the  imperial,  not  the  senatorial,  portion 
of  Eome's  domain.^*^  No  community  was  anxious  to 
come  under  rule  of  the  Senate. 

The  alleged  appointment  of  Herod  Agrippa,  Senior,  as 
king  in  the  first  or  second  year  of  Caligula  is,  equally 
with  the  alleged  cotemporary  appointment  of  Antiochus, 
open  to  suspicion  of  being  a  political  falsehood  of  later 
date.  The  subsequent  presence  of  Herod  Agrippa  at 
Eome,  and  his  evident  favor  and  connection  with  the 
senatorial  murderers  of  Caligula,  imply  that  he  did  not 
expect  advancement  from  Caligula,  but  did  expect  it  from 
the  Senate.  In  this  he  was  not  disappointed.  When 
Claudius,  an  imbecile,  attained  the  throne  and  became  a 
senatorial  tool,  Herod  had  a  kingdom  given  him  equal- 
ling in  dimensions  that  of  Herod  the  Great ;  and,  perhaps 
to  prevent  subsequent  curtailment  or  withdrawal  of  it, 
Claudius  must  have  been  induced  to  make  a  public  com- 
pact with  Herod  in  the  Eoman  forum. 

The  appointment  of  an  alabarch  or  ethnarch  over  the 

^  The  domain  granted  to  successive  Jewish  kings  and  ethnarchs,  and 
to  Antiochus  of  Commagene,  could  detract  onl}'  from  imperial,  not  from 
senatorial,  provinces. 

^^  On  the  death  of  Herod,  surnamed  the  Great,  his  unfortunate  sub- 
jects earnestly,  hut  unsuccessfully,  petitioned  (Joseplius,  Antiq.  17,  11, 
1,  2)  for  annexation  to  the  imperial  province  of  SjTia.  Commagene 
wished  and  received  in  A.  D.  17  the  privilege  of  becoming  an  imperial 
province  under  Tiberius.  It  was  returned  to  a  son  of  its  former  king, 
(Dio  Cass.  60,  s)  in  a.  d.  41,  when  the  Senate,  on  the  accession  of 
Claudius,  obtained  control.  Under  the  popular  party  in  A.  D.  73  it  again 
became  an  imperial  province.  Pontus,  in  Asia  ]\Iinor,  and  also  the  Cottian 
Alps,  would  seem  from  the  form  of  narration  (Sueton.  Nero,  c.  18)  to  have 
peacefully  become  imperial  provinces  when  Seneca  and  Burrhus  swayed 
Eoman  affairs.  The  allegation  that  Caligula  granted  to  Antiochus  all 
the  revenues  of  Commagene  for  the  time  that  it  had  been  a  Roman  prov- 
ince, was  probably  a  political  fabrication  after  the  death  of  Caligula  for 
the  purpose  of  facilitating  or  concealing  some  enormous  depletion  of  the 
prince's  treasury  in  the  interest  of  his  enemies. 


§iv.]  ANNEXATION   AND   DISINTEGRATION.  85 

Jews  at  Alexandria  was  simply  the  establishment  of  a 
dependent  king  under  another  nanie.^^  He  and  his  co- 
adjutors belonged  —  in  the  only  instance  where  we  can 
determine  their  politics  —  to  the  senatorial,  rather  than 
the  imperial,  faction.  This  is  obvious  from  the  alal)arch's 
imprisonment  by  Caligula,  and  release  when  the  Senate 
under  Claudius  obtained  control,  as  also  from  the  fact 
that  Pliilo,  brother  of  the  alabarch,  defends  the  outrageous 
seizure  of  Flaccus. 

Two  instances  at  least  occur  of  a  province  or  prov- 
inces being  transferred  by  the  Senate  to  the  prince,  botli 
in  the  time  of  Tiberius.  Achaia  and  Macedonia  asked 
relief  from  taxes,  and  were  thereupon  transferred,^^  —  a 
pretty  sure  sign  that  princely  taxation  was  less  onerous 
than  senatorial.  At  a  later  date,  a  freebooter  rendered 
an  African  province  more  expense  proljably  than  profit. 
It  also  was,  for  a  time  at  least,  turned  over  to  Tiberius.^^ 

§  IV.    Regicide. 

Three  cotemporary  aspirants  for,  and  incumbents  of, 
the  throne,  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius,  perished  in  civil 
broil.  Their  deaths  cannot  fairly  be  included  under  the 
present  head.  Julius  Csesar,  Caligula,  and  Domitian 
were  assassinated.     Nero  was  forced  to  self-murder.     The 

^  Josephus,  after  mentioning  that  a  large  part  of  Alexandria  was  as- 
signed to  Jews,  says  :  "Their  ethnarch  [or  national  ruler]  is  appointed 
who  administers  [the  affairs  of]  the  nation,  gives  judicial  decisions, 
superintends  ffvix^oKalwn  (public  agreements)  and  irpodTayfxdTu^v  (ordi- 
nances), as  if  ruler  of  an  independent  state."  —  Antiq.  14,  7,  -2. 

^  "  It  was  decided  by  the  Senate  ^jZaciMi  that  Achaia  and  Macedonia, 
which  were  pleading  against  their  burdens,  should,  for  the  present,  be 
relieved  of  proconsular  rule  and  turned  over  to  CsBsar."  —  Tacitus, 
An.  1,  76.  When  these  provinces  had  recujieratfd  and  could  bear 
fleecing,  the  Senate  (Sueton.  Claud.  25  ;  Dio  Cass.  60,  24)  reassumed 
control.  AVhen  the  po])ular  party,  under  Vespasian,  regained  power, 
they  were  returned  (Sueton.  Vcsj).  8)  to  the  prince. 

'^  In  A.  D.  17  apparently,  Tacfarinas  (Tacitus,  An.  2,  r,-2)  commenced 
his  military  operations,  and  in  A.  D.  21  "it  was  decreed  concerning 
Africa  [by  the  Senate]  tliat  Ciesar  should  select  the  person  to  whom  it 
should  be  committed."  —Tacitus,  An.  3,  32. 


86  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

Emperors  assassinated  were  all  ANTi-senatorial ;  nor  can 
there  be  any  doubt  that  in  each  of  the  three  cases  a 
majority  of  the  Senate  was  engaged  in  the  plot.  We 
are  told  by  Juvenal  (5,  3G)  that  a  senatorial  leader  used, 
with  his  son-in-law,  to  celebrate  the  birthdays  of  Brutus 
and  Cassius,  crowned  with  laurel. 

Among  the  popular  party,  murder,  as  a  political  remedy, 
would  seem  to  have  had  less  standing  than  among  the 
aristocracy. 

§  V.    Slavery.^ 

Slavery  was  common  among  heathens,  but  Jews,  if 
we  except  their  kings,  can  rarely  have  been  slaveholders 
during  the  century  before  and  that  after  the  Christian 
era.  Jewish  and  Christian  writings  mention,  not  infre- 
quently, slaves,  or  freedmen,  of  heathen,  but  not  of  Jew- 
ish, masters.  Among  heathens  slavery  was  in  some 
respects  less,  and  in  others  far  more,  severe  than  as  it 
lately  existed  in  this  country .^^  The  aristocracy,  rather 
than  the  popular  party,  evinced  contempt  towards,*^  and 

*o  Compare  notes  on  pp.  172,  223,  315,  320,  325,  455. 

*i  Many  slaves  were  educated.  When  this  meant  that  opportunities 
of  education  were  not  denied  to  slave  children,  it  implies  that  they  were 
better  treated  than  slave  children  in  this  country.  When  it  meant  that 
men  or  women  of  education  were  by  fraud  or  violence,  in  peace  or  ivar, 
converted  into  slaves,  it  constituted  a  most  repulsive  feature  of  ancient 
servitude.  Another  inhuman  feature  was  the  law  that,  when  a  master 
was  killed,  his  slaves  should  all  be  put  to  death. 

Cicero,  after  capturing  Pindenissus,  sold  the  inhabitants  for  slaves, 
and,  while  the  sale  was  going  on,  wrote  to  his  friend  Atticus  {Ad  Attic. 
5,  20)  :  ' '  While  I  write  from  my  tribunal  the  result  amounts  already 
to  twelve  million  sesterces,"  about  .$480,000.  According  to  the  New 
American  Cycloppedia,  14,  fino,  which,  however,  gives  no  reference, 
the  number  of  slaves  sold  on  this  occasion  was  about  ten  thousand. 

*^  Augustus  assigned  to  foreign  ambassadors,  at  the  public  spectacles, 
the  same  class  of  seats  as  to  senators.  He  found  himself  afterwards 
obliged,  in  deference  towards  senatorial  feeling,  to  change  this  (Sueton. 
Aug.  4-1),  because  one  or  more  of  such  ambassadors  had  proved  to  be 
freedmen.  Compare  also  (Ch.  VII.  note  18)  the  feeling  towards  Quintus 
Cicero,  caused  by  his  placing  a  freedman  in  an  elevated  position. 


§  v.]  SLAVERY.  87 

favored  severe  legislation  ^^  concerning,  slaves  and  freed- 

*^  Compare  Patricianism  in  cc.  V.  note  8,  VII.  note  86,  X.  note  124, 
with  a  law  of  Domitian  (?)  or  Nerva  (?)  mentioned  by  Plutarch  in  Ch.  X. 
note  82.  The  patricians,  who  from  A.  d.  41  to  A.  D.  54,  while  Claudius  was 
Emperor,  had  had  their  own  way,  endeavored,  during  the  earlier  years  of 
Nero's  reign,  to  carry  matters  with  an  equally  high  hand.  In  A.  D.  56, 
"the  Senate  took  into  consideration  the  malpractices  of  the  freedmen  ; 
and  it  demanded  importunately  '  that  patrons  should  have  a  right 
of  revoking  the  enfranchisement  of  delinquents.'  For  this  many  were 
ready  to  vote  ;  but  the  consuls,  afraid  to  put  the  question  without  ap- 
prising the  prince,  acquainted  him  in  writing  with  the  general  opinion 
of  the  Senate,  and  consulted  him  whether  he  would  become  the  author 
of  this  constitution,  since  it  was  opposed  by  few."  —  Tacitus,  Jn.  13, 
2G,  Bohn's  trans.  Perhaps  the  rendering  should  be,  "acquainted  him 
in  writing  with  the  conscnsum  almost  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Senate 
that  he  should  be  the  mover  of  the  enactment."  In  either  case,  it  was  a 
piece  of  political  strategy,  which  meant,  "We  desire,  for  our  own  ad- 
vantage, permission  to  make  slaves  out  of  freedmen,  but  we  wish  you  to 
bear  all  the  odium  of  being  the  responsible  author  of  such  an  enact- 
ment." "  Nero  wrote  to  the  Senate,  that  they  should  investigate  the  cases 
of  freedmen  individually,  whenever  they  were  prosecuted  by  their  pa- 
trons ;  but  in  nothing  retrench  the  rights  of  the  body." —  Tacitus,  An. 
13,  '27,  Bohn's  trans. 

The  Emperor  Claudius,  in  whose  reign  patricianism  held  complete 
control,  had  been  its  mere  tool,  and  had  saved  the  Senate  all  need  of 
odious  legislation.  "He  confiscated  the  estates  of  all  freedmen  who 
presumed  to  take  upon  themselves  the  equestrian  rank.  Such  of  them 
as  were  ungrateful  to  their  patrons,  and  were  complained  of  by  them,  he 
reduced  to  their  former  condition  of  slavery,  and  declared  to  their  advo- 
cates that  he  would  always  give  judgment  against  the  freed- 
men, in  any  suit  at  law  which  the  masters  might  happen  to  have  with 
them." — Sueton.  Claud.  25,  Bohn's  trans. 

The  disposition  of  the  patricians  on  this  subject  is  strongly  manifested 
by  the  comment  of  Tacitus  u))on  the  legal  decision  concerning  Paris. 
"Domitia,  Nero's  aunt,  was  deprived  of  Paris,  her  freedman,  under 
color  of  a  civil  right ;  not  without  the  dishonor  of  the  prince,  .since  by 
his  command  was  given  a  judgment  which  pronounced  him  free-born." — 
An.  13,  27.  That  the  court  should  sustain  a  man's  claim  to  having  been 
free-born, was  deemed  disgraceful. 

In  A.  D.  21,  "a  decree  of  the  Senate  also  passed,  equally  tending  to  the 
vindication  of  justice  [!]  and  security,  'that  if  anyone  was  killed  by 


88  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

men.     Some  held  slaves  by  thousands,  and  perhaps  took 

his  slaves,  those  too,  who,  by  his  will,  were  made  free  under  the  same 
roof,  should  be  executed  amongst  his  other  slaves.'"  —  Tacitus,  ^». 
13,  32,  Bolni's  trans. 

In  A.  D.  61,  "  Pedanius  Secundus,  prefect  of  the  city,  was  murdered 
by  his  own  slave. .  .  .  Now,  since  according  to  anx'ient  custom,  the  whole 
family  of  slaves  who  upon  such  occasion  abode  under  the  same  roof 
must  be  subjected  to  capital  punishment,  such  was  the  conflux  of  the 
people,  who  were  desirous  of  saving  so  many  innocent  lives,  that  mat- 
ters proceeded  even  to  sedition  ;  in  the  Senate  itself  were  some  who 
were  favorable  to  the  popular  side,  and  rejected  such  excessive  rigor ; 
while  many,  on  the  contrary,  voted  against  admitting  any  innovation  ; 
of  these  last  was  Gains  Cassius.  .  .  .  Though  no  particular  senator 
ventured  to  combat  this  judgment  of  Cassius,  it  was  responded  to  by 
the  dissonant  voices  of  such  as  commiserated  the  number  affected,  the 
age  of  some,  the  sex  of  others,  the  undoubted  innocence  of  very  many 
of  them  ;  it  was,  however,  carried  by  the  party,  who  adjudged  all 
to  death.  But  it  could  not  be  executed,  the  populace  gathering  tumultu- 
ously  together,  and  threatening  vehemently  that  they  would  resort  to 
stones  and  firebrands.  Nero,  therefore,  rebuked  the  people  in  an  edict, 
and,  with  lines  of  soldiers,  secured  all  the  way,  through  which  the  con- 
demned were  led  to  execution.  Cingonius  Varro  had  moved  that  the 
freedmen  too  who  abode  under  the  same  roof  should  be  deported  from 
Italy  ;  but  this  was  prohibited  by  the  prince,  who  urged,  '  that  the 
USAGE  OF  antiquity,  which  had  not  been  relaxed  from  compassion, 
ought  not  to  be  made  more  stringent  from  cruelt3^' "  —  Tacitus,  An.  14, 
42-4,5,  Bolni's  trans. 

The  popular  party,  unfortunately,  had  no  representative  assembly 
elected  by  itself,  through  which  legislation  might  be  improved.  To 
wrong  and  cruelty  it  could  only  oppose  violence  —  a  remedy  so  dangerous, 
that  many  who  sympathized  with  the  object  shrunk  from  the  means.  A 
prince  or  a  subordinate  officer  of  the  popular  party  had  to  execute  what 
he  abhorred.     On  deference  for  old  customs,  compare  Ch.  II.  note  41. 

In  A.  D.  52,  when  aristocratic  n^action  under  Claudius  reached  its  cul- 
mination, a  law  was  enacted  (Tacitus,  An.  12,  .'>;!)  that  every  woman 
who  married  a  slave,  without  knovvledge  of  his  master,  should  become  a 
slave,  or  if,  with  the  master's  knowledge,  should  be  degraded  to  the 
l)Osition  of  a  freedwoman.  This  law  was  passed  at  a  date  when  many 
slaves  were  more  educated  than  their  masters.  It  must  have  been  un- 
popular, for  the  consul  elect  favored  giving  "  prctorian  ornaments  and 
fifteen  million  sesterces"  to  its  originator.     If  Suetonius  {Vcsjms.  11) 


§vi.]  EXPENSIVE  LIVING.  89 

pride  in  having  them  from  diverse  nationalities.**  IVIany 
slaves  were  purchased  for  their  capacity  as  pugilists, 
wrestlers,  or  gladiators,  and  not  a  few  because  of  personal 
beauty,  or  for  capacity  as  clowns  and  jesters.  The  ag- 
gregation into  one  mass  of  human  beings,  without  moral 
or  other  discipline,  with  no  common  objects,  and  many 
of  them  trained  to  fighting,  could  not  but  occasion  un- 
happiness  and  crime.  It  need  not  cause  wonder  that 
some  deemed  every  slave  an  enemy .*^  Neitlier  were  the 
slaves  a  terror  to  the  household  onl}^  A  whole  neigh- 
borhood must  often  have  suffered  from  these  lawless 
bands. 

§  VI.   JExioensive  Living. 

From  the  battle  of  Actium  (b.  c.  31),  when  the  aristoc- 
racy obtained  nearly  complete  control,  until  the  accession 
of  Vespasian,  when  their  power  was  more  effectually  crip- 
pled than  at  any  intermediate  period,  an  inordinately  ex- 
pensive habit  of  living  was  in  vogue  among  the  wealthier 
Piomans.*^  The  explanation  by  Tacitus  of  its  decay  is 
insufQcient.*'     The  only  satisfactory  explanation  is,  that 

be  correct,  that  a  similar  law  was  enacted  in  the  time  of  Vespasian,  he 
must  err  in  supposing  that  Vespasian  prompted  it.  Patricianism,  in  the 
time  of  Suetonius,  had  control  of  the  book-markets,  and  was  skilful  in 
making  its  enemies  responsible  for  its  own  more  odious  acts.  Vespasian's 
cherished  wife  was  a  freedwoman.  He  was  uninfected  by  patrician  sen- 
timent on  this  subject. 

**  "  What  should  first  be  prohibited  .  .  .  the  number  and  nationality, 
numerum  et  nationes,  of  our  slaves."  —  Tiberius  in  Tacitus,  An.  3,  .i3. 

45  "The  proverb  is  current  :  ^  As  many  slaves  [«swe  have]  so  many 
\are]  cur  enemies.'  We  do  not  have  them  [originally]  hs  enemies,  we 
make  them  such."  —  Seneca,  Epist.  47,  3,  4. 

**"  ' '  The  luxury  of  the  table  which,  from  the  battle  of  Actium  to  the 
revolution  by  which  Galba  obtained  the  Empire,  a  space  of  a  hundred 
years,  was  practised  with  the  most  costly  profusion,  began  then  gradually 
to  decline." — Tacitus,  An.  3,  .>%  Bohn's  trans. 

*''  "  Men  of  no  family,  frequently  chosen  senators  from  the  municipal 
towns,  from  the  colonies,  and  even  from  the  provinces,  brought  with 
them  the  frugality  they  observed  at  home  ;  and  though,  by  good  fortune 
or  industry,  many  of  them  grew  wealthy  as  they  grew  old,  yet  their  for- 


90  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  V. 

when  the  popular  party  under  Vespasian  came  into 
partial  possession  of  power,  patricians  were  no  longer  able 
to  fleece  tlie  provinces  so  extensively  as  before,  and  were 
compelled  by  lack  of  means  to  retrench  their  style  of  liv- 
ing. So  long  as  extravagance  was  paid  for  by  the  pro- 
vincials, no  remedy  was  found.  Some  doubtless  desired  a 
remedy ;  for  —  since  all  cannot  have  been  equally  favored 
with  official  spoils  —  some  found  themselves  on  the  road 
to  ruin.  Such  men,  instead  of  acting  independently  and 
refusing  to  imitate  extravagance,  wished  a  legal  restriction 
put  upon  others,  that  these  others  might  not  outshine 
them.^^     They  naturally  were  not  ambitious  to  be  deemed 

mer  habits  continued.  But  Vespasian  was  the  great  promoter  of  parsi- 
monious living,  himself  a  pattern  of  primitive  strictness  in  his  person  and 
table :  hence  the  compliance  of  the  public  with  the  manners  of  the  prince, 
and  the  gratification  of  imitating  him,  operated  more  powerfully  than 
the  terror  of  laws  and  all  their  penalties.  Or  perhaps  all  human  things 
go  a  certain  round,  and  there  are  revolutions  in  manners  analogous  to  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  seasons."  —  Ibid. ,Bohn's  trans. 

**  "At  home  some  severe  measures  were  apprehended  against  luxury, 
which  was  carried  beyond  all  bounds  in  everything  which  involved  a 
profuse  expenditure.  But  the  more  pernicious  instances  of  extravagance 
were  covered,  as  the  cost  was  generally  a  secret ;  while  from  the  sums 
spent  in  gluttony  and  revelry,  as  they  were  the  subject  of  daily  animad- 
version, apprehensions  were  raised  of  some  severe  corrective  from  a 
prince  who  observed  himself  the  ancient  parsimony.  For  Caius 
Bibulus,  having  begun  the  complaint,  the  other  ediles  took  it  up  and 
declared  '  that  the  sumptuary  laws  were  despised  ;  the  pomp  and  ex- 
pense of  plate  and  entertainments,  in  .spite  of  restraints,  increased  daily, 
and  by  moderate  penalties  the  evil  could  not  be  stopped.'  This  grievance 
thus  represented  to  the  Senate  was  by  them  referred  entirely  to  the  Em- 
peror. Tiberius  .  .  .  wrote  at  last  to  the  Senate  in  this  manner  :  .  .  . 
'  "What  is  it  that  I  am  first  to  prohibit,  what  excess  retrench  to  the  an- 
cient standard  ?  Am  I  to  begin  with  that  of  our  country-seats,  spacious 
without  bounds  ;  and  with  the  number  of  domestics,  from  various  coun- 
tries? or  with  the  quantity  of  silver  and  gold?  or  with  the  pictures,  and 
statues  of  brass,  the  wonders  of  art  ?  or  with  vestments,  promiscuously 
worn  by  men  and  women?  or  with  what  is  peculiar  to  the  women, — those 
precious  stones,  —  for  the  purchase  of  which  our  coin  is  carried  into 
foreign  or  hostile  nations?"  —  Tacitus,  An.  3,  .V2,  .W,  Bohn's  trans. 
The  frugality  of  Tiberius  was  that  of  a  conscientious  man.     The  state- 


§vi.]  EXPENSIVE  LIVING.  91 

authors  of  such  a  law,  but  under  pretence  of  deference 
wished  the  prince  to  assume  its  authorship  and  odium.^^ 
Other  witnesses  than  Tacitus  testify  to  costly  Eoman 
gluttony.  Seneca  dwells  upon  the  almost  or  altogether 
beastly  habits  of  gormandizing  and  ruinous  consequences 
to  health.^''  He  tells  us  :  "  You  will  not  wonder  that  dis- 
eases are  innumerable.  Count  the  cooks.  Alb  study  is 
at  an  end,  and  professors  of  liberal  knowledge  without  at- 
tendance preside  over  deserted  localities.  There  is  soli- 
tude in  the  schools  of  rhetoricians  and  philosophers.  But 
how  celebrated  are  cooks  ! "  ^^  Among  the  books  discov- 
ered at  Herculaneum,  not  a  few  seem  to  have  been  upon 
cookery.^2      Tiberius,  Vespasian,  and  Domitian  discoun- 

ments  that  he  and  Vespasian  imitated  ancient  frugality  are  but  an  indi- 
rect method  of  giving  to  antiquity  an  undeserved  credit.  Patricians  of 
earlier  times  were  limited  by  their  means  more  than  by  conscience  or  in- 
clination, and  consequently  their  means,  thongh  less  extensive,  were,  as 
in  the  case  of  LucuUus,  largely  nsed  for  display.  In  the  days  of  Pompey 
it  had  already  become  customary  to  make  room  for  a  good  dinner  by  tak- 
ing an  emetic  beforehand. 

*®  "  These  excesses  are  censured,  and  a  regulation  is  demanded  ;  and 
yet,  if  an  equal  law  were  made,  if  equal  penalties  were  prescribed,  these 
very  censors  would  loudly  complain,  '  that  the  state  was  utterly  over- 
turned,   THAT    EVERY  ILLUSTRIOUS   HOUSE   WAS   MENACED   WITH  RUIN, 

and  that  every  citizen  was  exposed  to  criminal  informations.'  ...  If 
any  of  the  magistrates,  from  a  confidence  in  his  own  strictness  of  prin- 
ciple and  energy,  will  undertake  to  stem  the  progress  of  so  great  an  evil, 
he  has  my  praises,  and  my  acknowledgment  that  he  disburdens  me  of 
part  of  my  labors ;  but  if  their  will  is  merely  to  declaim  against  abuses, 
and,  when  they  have  gained  applause  for  the  same,  leave  me  to  bear  the 
odium  of  proposing  the  measures  they  recommend,  believe  me,  conscript 
fathers,  I  too  am  not  fond  of  giving  offence  ;  and  though  I  am  content 
to  encounter  heavy  and  for  the  most  part  unmerited  animosities,  for  the 
good  of  the  commonwealth,  I  am  justified  in  deprecating  such  as  are  un- 
called for  and  sujierfluous,  and  can  be  of  no  service  either  to  me  or  to 
yourselves."  — Tacitus,  An.  3,  54,  Bohn's  trans. 

^'^  Seneca,  ^^j/s^  95,  15-29,  Gout  is  specified  as  common  among 
women,  owing  to  their  way  of  life. 

51  md.  23. 

52  "At  He?culaneum  .  .  .  the  titles  of  four  hundred  of  those  [Irooks 
or  rolls  of  papyrus]  least  injured,  which  have  been  read,  are  found  to  be 


92  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

tenanced  patrician  table-customs,  though  the  prominent 
motive  of  each  was  perliaps  different.  To  Vespasian,  a 
simple  man,  these  table-habits  would  have  been  annoy- 
ing.'^3  To  Domitian,  who  was  systematically  industrious, 
they  would  have  been  a  loss  of  time.^"^  Tiberius  was  of 
a  nature  to  share  both  objections,  but  would,  in  a  greater 
degree  than  either  of  the  others,  have  felt  moral  repug- 
nance to  prevailing  customs.  The  same  piece  of  meat 
appeared  twice  upon  his  table,^^  and  when  an  inordinately 
expensive  fish  was  sent  him  he  declined  to  have  it 
cooked.^^  Table  extravagance  was  but  one  of  the  forms 
in  which  Eonians  wasted  their  property. 

§  VII.    Siqrpression  of  Documents. 

Misrepresentation  of  history  attends  all  violent  strug- 
gles.    Destruction  of  history,  or  of  documents  important 

unimportant  works,  but  all  entirely  new,  chiefly  relating  to  MUSIC, 
KHETORic,  and  cookery." — liyell,  Geology,  2, 1'u,  4tli  London  edition. 

^  The  triumphal  procession  of  Vespasian  tired  him  out,  and  thereby, 
in  his  own  opinion,  served  him  rightly  (Sueton.  Vespas.  c.  12)  for  having 
■wished  it.  Suetonius  difl'ers  somewhat  from  Tacitus  concerning  the 
table  of  Vespasian,  saying,  "He  entertained  constantly  and  often  in  true 
and  costly  manner  to  aid  the  piiovision-dealers."  —  Sueton.  Vcs-pns. 
c.  19.  This  reads  however  like  the  defence  of  some  friend  who  did  not  like 
to  hear  the  Emperor  blamed  for  parsimony. 

"  See  Ch.  X.  note  25. 

^^  "  To  encourage  frugality  in  the  public  by  his  own  example,  he  would 
often,  at  his  solemn  feasts,  have  at  his  table  victuals  which  had  been  served 
up  the  day  before,  and  were  partlj'  eaten,  and  half  a  boar,  affirming,  '  It 
has  all  the  same  good  bits  that  the  whole  had."  —  Sueton.  Tiberius, 
c.  34,  Bohn's  trans. 

^  A  mullet,  according  to  Pliny  {Nat.  Hist.  9,  17),  rarely  exceeded  two 
pounds.  Some  one  sent  a  large  one  weighing  four  and  a  half  pounds  to 
Tiberius.  He  apparently  did  not  care  to  be  quoted  as  having  extravagant 
delicacies,  and  sent  it  to  the  provision-dealer,  remarking,  "  Friends,  T  am 
much  deceived  if  Apicius  or  Publius  Octavius  does  not  buy  that  mullet." 
—  Seneca,  E/iist.  95, 42.  The  dealer  put  it  up  at  auction,  and  Octavius 
bouglit  it  for  five  thousand  sesterces.  Even  the  bitter  political  enemies 
of  Tiberius  attribute  to  him  no  tinge  of  avarice.  His  pleasantry  con- 
tains the  best  indication  of  his  motive  for  not  retainhig  the  fish. 


§vii.]  SUPPRESSION   OF  DOCUMENTS.  93 

to  its  comprehension,  implies  excess  of  unfairness,  or  of 
timidity,  or  of  both,  in  the  party  or  individual  resorting 
to  it.  The  instances  of  it  in  Eoman  history  are  attribu- 
table, unless  possibly  in  the  case  of  Domitian,  to  the 
senatorial  party. 

The  burning  in  B.  c.  181  of  books  alleged  to  have  been 
written  by  Numa,^^  indicates  patrician  intolerance,  but 
the  detriment  which  it  caused  to  history  must  have  been 
slight. 

Augustus  established  a  censorship  of  publications 
(Tac.  An.  1,  72),  and  suppressed  papers  left  by  Julius 
Csesar.^^  The  subjection  of  Augustus  during  many  years 
to  patrician  influence,  and  the  manner  in  which  he 
carried  out  its  behests,  render  certain  that  his  censorship 
bore  chiefly  on  the  popular  party,  and  raise  suspicion  that 
some  of  his  uncle's  suppressed  writings,  instead  of  being 
unimportant,  were  such  as  the  aristocracy  wished  out  of 
the  way.  In  this  connection  the  suppression  or  publica- 
tion of  senatorial  action  has  an  interest.  The  Senate, 
when  allowed  its  own  way,  became  a  secret  conclave. 
The  great  popular  leader  caused  its  action  to  be  published, 
thus  rendering  it  more  responsible  to  public  opinion.^^ 

The  destruction  and  secretion  of  Sibylline  compositions, 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  14. 

®  "Certain  works  are  allegerl  to  have  been  written  by  him  [Julius 
Caesar]  in  boyhood  and  early  manhood,  as  Praises  of  Hercules  ;  (Edipus, 
a  tragedy ;  also  Maxims  [or  Proverbial  Sayings],  all  which  booklets 
Augustus,  in  a  brief  and  plain  epistle  to  Pompeius  ]\Iacer, —  to  whom  he 
had  delegated  the  arrangement  of  libraries, — forbade  '  jnihlicari  to  be 
placed  within  reach  of  the  public'  (or,  perhaps,  'to  be  sold  by  booksell- 
ers')."—  Sueton.  Casar,  56.  The  Hercules  and  Qildijius,  works  probably 
of  no  consequence,  may  have  been  included  in  the  prohibition  as  a  means 
of  withdrawing  attention  from  Maxims,  which  the  aristocracy  did  not  care 
to  have  in  circulation  backed  by  Csesar's  authority. 

^^  Julius  Cffisar  "introduced  a  new  regulation,  that  the  daily  acts  both 
of  the  Senate  and  people  should  be  committed  to  writing  and  published." 
—  Sueton.  Cxsar,  20,  Bohn's  trans.  Augustus  made  "several  other 
alterations  in  the  management  of  public  affairs,  among  which  were  these 
following  :  That  the  acts  of  the  Senate  should  NOX  be  published.  .  .  ."  — 
Sueton.  August.  36,  Bohn's  trans. 


94  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  V. 

whatever  the  pretext,  was  but  an  effort  by  the  senatorial 
faction  to  prevent  perusal  of  a  document  whose  authority 
they  had  recognized  and  whose  influence  (see  Ch.  VII. 
notes  65,  67,  68)  annoyed  them. 

Caligula  committed  to  the  flames  all  record  of  testi- 
mony against  his  mother.  This,  however,  was  an  act  of 
kindness,  not  to  his  own  party,  but  to  his  senatorial  op- 
ponents. It  was  not  meant  to  obscure  history,  but  to 
assure  individuals,  that  at  his  hands  they  need  not  fear 
for  the  past.  It  should  be  classed  under  forgiveness, 
rather  than  suppression  of  facts.  He  permitted  the  pe- 
rusal of  works  which  the  Senate  had  endeavored  in  the 
two  preceding  reigns  to  suppress.^ 

The  further  destruction  of  documents  under  his  suc- 
cessor was  an  effort  of  the  aristocracy  to  conceal  their 
own  misdeeds.^^ 

During  the  senatorial  conspiracy  against  Domitian,  a 
biography  of  Helvidius  Prisons,  written  by  one  of  the 
conspirators,  a  biography  which  not  improbably  advocated 
or  lauded  assassination,^^  was  suppressed  by  a  decree  of 
the  Senate,  that  body  fearing  to  be  held  accountable  for 
it.  The  inference  may  or  may  not  be  correct  that  Do- 
mitian called  for  its  suppression.  He  is  also  charged 
(Sueton.  Dow/it.  10)  with  punishing  liberty  of  speech. 
Whether  and  how  far  the  misdeeds  of  his  antagonist, 
the  Senate,  have  been  attributed  to  him,  may  be  a  ques- 

^^  See  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  114.  "To  relieve  prosecutors  and 
witnesses  against  his  mother  and  brothers  from  all  apprehension,  he 
brought  the  records  of  their  trials  into  the  forum,  and  there  burnt  them, 
calling  loudly  on  the  gods  to  witness  that  he  had  not  read  or  handled 
them."  —  Sueton.  Calig.  15,  Bohn's  tr.  alt'd.  "The  writings  of  Titus 
Labienus,  Cordus  Cremutius,  and  Cassius  Sevenis,  which  had  been  sup- 
pressed by  an  act  of  the  Senate,  he  permitted  to  be  drawn  from  obscurity, 
and  universally  read. " —  Sueton.  Calig.  1 6,  Bohn's  trans. 

^1  Claudiiis  "showed  to  the  Senate  the  books  of  Protogenes,  whom  also 
he  put  to  death,  and  the  writings  which  Caligula  pretended  [?]  to  have 
burned,  .  .  .  and  gave  them  [?]  for  perusal  to  the  writers  and  [or?]  to 
those  against  whom  they  were  written,  and  after  this  burned  them." 
—  Dio  Cass.  60,  l. 

^2  Compare  Ch.  X.  note  37. 


§vii.]  SUPPRESSION   OF  DOCUMENTS.  95 

tion.  If  the  Senate  charged  its  own  crimes  upon  Tibe- 
rius and  Caligula,  it  was  equally  likely  and  had  but  too 
much  opportunity  to  do  the  same  towards  Domitian. 

At  the  close  of  the  third  century,  destruction  of  Chris- 
tian records  by  the  dominant  patrician  party  was  com- 


mon 


63 


About  the  same  time,  destruction  to  Cicero's  writings 
was  advocated ;  probably  because  they  were  thought  to 
make  standing  ground  for  monotheism.^ 

No  charge  is  made  against  Emperors  of  the  popular 
party,  even  by  their  enemies,  that  tiiey  destroyed  patri- 
cian literature.  In  later  centuries  suppression  of  writ- 
ings was  reintroduced  by  ecclesiastical  and  secular  rulers. 
In  modern  continental  Europe  prohibition  or  destruction 
of  literature  has  been  systematized  as  a  regular  govern- 
mental function  entitled,  Censorship  of  the  Prcss.^^ 

68  < '  "With  our  owTi  eyes  we  beheld  the  inspired  and  sacred  writings 
given,  in  the  middle  of  the  market-places,  to  the  fire."^ — Ijuseb.  Ecc. 
Hist.  8,  2.  Compare  Mosheim,  De  Rchiis  {Commentaries  on  the  Affairs  of 
Christians  before  Constantine),  Cent.  4,  §  ii. ;  in  Murdock's  edit,  see 
especially  pp.  417,  423,  426,  427. 

^  "I  know  that  there  are  not  a  few  who  turn  their  backs  and  run 
away  from  [hearing]  his  (Cicero's)  books,  .  .  .  and  I  hear  others  mutter 
indignantly  and  say,  that  the  Senate  ought  to  enact  a  decree  for  the  de- 
struction of  these  writings,  which  prove  the  Christian  religion  and  crush 
out  the  AUTHORITY  OF  ANTIQUITY."  —  Axuoh.  Adv.  Gent.  3,7. 

^  Censorship  of  the  press  is  sometimes  political,  sometimes  theological, 
and  sometimes  practical.  What  cannot  be  jiublished  in  one  country  is 
occasionally  published  in  another  and  surreptitiously  introduced  where 
forbidden.  The  fourth  edition  of  the  Conversations- Lexicon,  published 
in  Saxony  (a  later  edition  of  which  furnished  the  basis  of  the  Ency- 
clopaedia Americana),  was,  during  the  author's  visit  to  Germany,  under 
ban  of  the  Prussian  censorship.  Von  Eaumer's  Fall  of  Poland  was,  as 
a  compliment  to  Russia,  in  the  same  category.  The  Lei'pziger  Allgemeine 
Zeitimg,  a  leading  German  newspaper,  was,  during  his  stay  there,  for- 
bidden to  circulate  in  Hanover. 

An  instance  of  the  practical  kind  came  under  his  observation  in  a 
proof-sheet  of  an  English  newspaper,  published  at  Leipsic,  containing  the 
censor's  annotations.  Some  passage,  intended  to  be  humorous,  ridiculed 
the  uniform  of  a  Leipsic  military  company.     Opposite  was  written,  Kann 


96  JUDAIS^I  AT  EOME.  [CH.  V. 

§  VIII.   Sympathy  of  the  Jewish  with  the  Roman  Aris- 
tocracy. 

To  some  extent  the  Jewish  aristocracy  sympathized,  or 
at  least  co-operated,  with  the  Roman.  Materials  for  de- 
termining their  relations  are  scanty,  and  it  is  dilhcult  to 
say  whether  this  held  true  of  their  whole  body,  or  of  a 
majority,  or  merely  of  a  minority.  A  portion  may  have 
co-operated  openly ;  a  larger  number  may  have  done  the 
same  indirectly. 

The  aristocracy  at  Jerusalem,  as  depicted  by  Josephus 
and  the  New  Testament  writers,  were,  with  slight  excep- 
tions, more  devoted  to  class  privileges  than  to  the  com- 
mon welfare.  Herod  the  Great  and  Herod  Agrippa 
Senior,  who  were  closely  in  league  with  the  patrician  fac- 
tion at  Eome,  found  support  in  the  aristocracy  of  Jvidsea, 
rather  than  among  the  middle  and  lower  classes.  The 
inference  seems  fair,  that  co-operation,  direct  or  indirect, 
existed  between  the  ruling  classes  at  Eome  and  Jeru- 
salem. 

If  we  now  turn  to  Alexandria,  we  find  at  one  date  — 
the  beginning  of  Caligula's  reign  —  a  somewhat  similar 
state  of  things.  The  various  persons  to  be  mentioned 
need  a  prefatory  word. 

Flaccus  had,  five  years  before  the  death  of  Tiberius, 
been  appointed  by  him  to  a  six  years'  term  of  office  as 
governor  at  Alexandria.  If  we  may  credit  that  portion 
of  Philo's  narrative  which  cannot  be  attributed  to  self- 
exculpation  or  other  bad  motive,  he  was  a  man  of  un- 
usual administrative  ability  and  moral  worth.^^ 

nicht  stehend  bleiben  (" 'Mast  not  remain").  The  ridicule,  even  if  un- 
called for,  would,  in  this  country,  have  hardly  excited  remark  ;  yet  the 
censor,  an  intelligent  historian,  probably  deemed  it  a  duty  to  suppress 
what  might  cause  feeling.     Compare  Ch.  XIII.  note  7. 

^•^  The  following  is  a  confession  wrung  doubtless  from  Philo  by  public 
opinion  at  Alexandria  :  "  This  Flaccus  being  chosen  by  Tiberius  C'ssar 
as  one  of  his  intimate  compaxioxs,  was,  after  the  death  of  Severus, 
who  had  been  lieutenant-governor  in  Egypt,  appointed  viceroy  of  Alex- 
andria and  the  country  round  about,  being  a  man  who  at  the  beginning, 


§viii.]      SYMPATHY   BETWEEN   THE   ARISTOCRACIES.  97 

Philo,  the  well-known  Jewish  writer,  identifies  himself 
unmistakably  with  patricianism  by  his  remarks  on  Seja- 

as  far  as  appearance  went,  had  given  innumerable  instances  of  his  excel- 
lence, for  he  was  a  man  of  prudence  and  diligence,  and  great  acuteness 
of  perception,  very  energetic  in  executing  what  he  had  determined  OB, 
very  eloquent  as  a  speaker,  and  skilful  tjo  at  discerning  what  was  sup- 
pressed, as  well  as  at  understanding  what  was  said.  Accordingly,  in  a 
short  time  he  became  perfectly  acquainted  with  the  affairs  of  Egypt, 
and  they  are  of  a  very  various  and  diversified  character,  so  that  they 
are  not  easily  comprehended  even  by  those  who  from  their  earliest 
infancy  have  made  them  tlieir  study. 

"The  scribes  were  a  superfluous  body  when  he  had  made  such  advances 
towards  the  knowledge  of  all  things,  whether  important  or  trivial,  by 
his  extended  experience,  that  he  not  only  surpassed  them,  but  from  his 
great  accuracy  was  qualified  instead  of  a  pupil  to  become  the  instructor 
of  those  who  had  hitherto  been  the  teachers  of  all  persons.  .  .  .  He  de- 
cided all  suits  of  importance  in  conjunction  with  the  magistrates,  he 
pulled  down  the  over-proud,  he  forbade  promiscuous- mobs  of  men  from 
all  quarters  to  assemble  together,  and  prohibited  all  associations  and 
meetings  which  were  continually  feasting  together  under  pretence  of 
sacrifices,  making  a  drunken  mockery  of  public  business,  treating  with 
great  vigor  and  severity  all  who  resisted  his  commands. 

"Then,  when  he  had  filled  the  whole  city  and  country  with  his  wise 
legislation,  he  proceeded  in  turn  to  regulate  the  military  affairs  of  the 
land,  issued  commands,  arranging  matters,  training  the  troops  of  every 
kind,  infantry,  cavalry,  and  light-armed  ;  teaching  the  commanders  not 
to  deprive  the  soldiers  of  their  pay,  and  so  drive  them  to  acts  of  piracy 
and  rapine  ;  and  teaching  each  individual  soldier  not  to  proceed  to  any 
actions  unauthorized  by  his  military  service,  remembering  that  he  was 
appointed  with  tlie  especial  object  of  preserving  peace.  .  .  . 

"  Having  received  a  government  which  was  intended  to  last  six  years, 
for  the  first  five  years,  while  Tiberius  Cssar  was  alive,  he  both  preserved 
peace,  and  also  governed  the  country  generally  with  .such  vigor  and  en- 
ergy that  he  was  superior  to  all  the  governors  who  had  gone  before  him. 
But  in  the  last  year,  after  Tiberius  was  dead,  and  when  Caius  had  suc- 
ceeded him  as  Emperor,  he  began  to  relax  in  and  to  be  indifferent  about 
everything  [?],  whether  it  was  that  he  was  overwhelmed  with  mo.st  heavy 
grief  because  of  Tiberius  (for  it  was  evident  to  every  one  that  he  grieved 
exceedingly  as  if  for  a  near  relation'  .  .  .  ),  or  whether  it  was 
because  he  was  disaffected  to  his  successor."  —  Fhilo,  Aijainst  Flaccics, 
CO.  1,  3  ;  Vol.  4,  i;i-{5i,  Bohn's  trans. 

5  G 


98  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

niis.^  Other  of  his  observations  accord  with  this  view,^ 
but  its  chief  support  will  be  found  in  his  elaborate  de- 
fence of  patrician  crime. 

Alexander  Lysimachus,  alabarch  or  ethnarch  of  the 
Jews  at  Alexandria,  the  wealthiest  of  his  cotemporaries 
there,  and  brother  of  Philo,  must  have  belonged  to  the 

''"'  Philo  opens  his  work  Against  Flaccus  with  the  assumption  —  not 
assertion  —  that  Sejanus  prompted  the  anti-Jewish  proceedings  in  the 
time  of  Tiberius,  which  must  mean  the  enactments  of  A.  d.  19.  The 
falsehood,  however  gross,  may  have  been  dangerous  to  answer  or  difficult 
of  disproof  in  a  provincial  city  at  the  date  when  he  wrote.  Compare  his 
Embassy,  c.  24.  A  noteworthy  circumstance  is,  that  he  nowhere  seeks 
patrician  favor  at  the  expense  of  Tiberius.  The  time  was  not  yet  ar- 
rived when  either  Jews,  or  the  better  class  of  heathens  IN  the  provinces, 
would  have  borne  to  hear  him  disparaged. 

8*  Philo  lauds  Agrippa,  patrician  leader  under  Augustus,  for  his  prac- 
tical monotheism,  because  "every  day  that  he  remained  in  the  citj',  'by 
reason  of  his  friendship  for  Herod,  he  went  to  that  sacred  place  [the 
temjile],  being  delighted  with  the  spectacle  of  the  building,  and  of  the 
sacrifices,  and  all  the  ceremonies  connected  with  the  worship  of  God,  and 
the  regularity  which  was  observed,  and  the  dignity  and  honor  paid  to 
the  high-priest,  and  his  grandeur  when  arrayed  in  his  sacred  vest- 
ments and  when  about  to  begin  the  sacrifices.  And  after  he  had  adorned 
the  temple  with  all  the  offeiings  in  his  power  to  contribute,  ...  he  was 
conducted  back  again  to  the  .sea-coast,  .  .  .  being  greatly  admired  and 
respected  for  his  piety  [emi^eta,  practical-monotheisml.'  " —  Embassy  to 
Caius,  c.  37,  Eohn's  trans.  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  726.  In  the  same  work  (c.  20, 
p.  695)  he  alleges,  that  the  adornments  upon  the  synagogues  IN  honor  of 
THE  emperors,  sucli  as  "  gilded  (or  perhaps  inlaid)  shields  and  crowns  as 
also  pillars  and  inscriptions"  were  a  reason  why  the  synagogues  themselve.s 
should  have  been  spared.  And  (Against  Flaccus,  c.  7,  p.  667)  he  complains, 
that  the  Jews,  if  deprived  of  their  synagogues,  could  no  longer  evince 
"practical-monotheism  towards  their  benefactors,"  meaning,  apparently, 
by  religious  services  in  their  behalf.  This  inability  "they  would  regard 
as  worse  than  ten  thousand  deaths,  since  they  would  have  no  sacred 
precincts  wherein  to  express  their  gratitude."  He  endeavors  to  impress 
this  A'iew  by  repetition.  "  To  the  Jews  everywhere  in  the  world  their 
synagogues  are  obviou.sly  means  of  inciting  religious  fidelity  towards  the 
house  of  Augustus.  If  these  were  destroyed,  what  other  place,  or  method, 
of  showing  honor  would  be  left  ? "  —  Ibid.  Language  of  thin  kind  causes 
distrust  of  its  author. 


§viii.]        SYMPATHY   BETWEEN   THE   ARISTOCEACIES.  99 

same  political  school.^^  He  was  arrested  by  Caligula, 
probably  for  connection  with  patrician  crime,  was  re- 
leased by  the  aristocracy  when  they  attained  power  under 
Claudius  and  this  release  was  coincident  with  a  rebellion, 
and  violent  suppression,  of  what  seems  to  have  been  the 
Jewish  commonalty  at  Alexandria.  His  son  was  after- 
wards, during  patrician  dominance,  made  procurator  of 
Judaea.  That  this  son  turned  heathen  need  cause  no  sur- 
prise.'^^ 

A  Jewish  council  had  been  instituted  at  Alexandria  by 
Augustus.'^  This  was  some  years  after  Antony's  defeat, 
and  it  must  have  been  selected  from  among  those  friendly 
to  patricianism.  As  thirty-eiglit  members  of  it  were  at 
one  time  arrested,  its  whole  number  may  have  been  sev- 
enty, the  favorite  Jewish  one. 

Herod  Agrippa  Senior  had,  because  of  his  mother's 
friendship  with  Antonia,'^  early  intercourse  with  the  fam- 
ily of  Tiberius.  The  Senate  had  probably,  during  tlie 
lifetime  of  that  Emperor,  employed  this  man  to  sound,  and 
if  possible  to  intrigue  witli,  Caligula  against  his  uncle.'^^ 
Tiberius,  confident  perhaps  in  Caligula's  affection  for  him- 
self, took  at  first  no  action  in  the  matter.  Antonia,  whose 
goodness  of  heart  prevented  mistrust  of  one  whose  mother 
had  been  dear  to  her,  importuned  Tiberius  for  a  judicial 

^  See  pp.  84,  85,  and  compare  Josephns,  Antiq.  19,  5,  l  ;  20,  5,  2. 

''*  Josephus  mentions  {Antiq.  20,  5,  i)  that  Tiberius  Alexander,  son  of 
the  alabarch,  was  made  procurator  of  Judaea  and  deserted  Judaism. 

'1  Philo,  Against  Flaccus,  10,  O})}}.  Paris  edit.  p.  670. 

■^  Herod  Agrippa  "requested  Antonia  ...  to  lend  liim  the  three  hun- 
dred thousand  (drachmae)  .  .  .  and  she,  for  the  recollection  of  his  mother 
Bernice,  with  whom  she  had  been  exceedingly  intimate,  and  for  his  own 
sake,  as  he  had  been  brought  up  among  the  companions  of  [her  son] 
Claudius,  gave  him  the  money."  —  Josephus,  Antiq.  18,6,  4.  Con- 
cerning Antonia,  see  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  .56. 

^'  Herod  "betook  himself  to  pay  his  respects  to  Cains  [Caligula]  .... 
Now  .  .  .  there  happened  some  words  to  pass  between  them,  as  they 
once  were  in  a  chariot  together,  concerning  Tiberius  ;  Agrippa  praying 
[to  God]  (for  they  two  sat  by  themselves),  that  '  Tiberius  might  soon  go 
off  the  stage,  and  leave  the  government  to  Cains,  who  was  in  every  respect 
more  worthy  of  it.'  "  —  Josephus,  Antiq.  18,  6,  4,  5,  Whiston's  trans. 


100  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.   V. 

investigation.  To  this  he  at  last  consented,  though  with 
the  remark  that  she  might  find  the  matter  more  serious 
than  she  supposed/* 

We  now  come  to  the  train  of  events.  Caligula  was 
taken  ill  in  August  of  A.  D.  37."^  The  illness  endan- 
gered life,  and  lasted  for  weeks  certainly,  if  not  for 
months."*^  He  can  hardly  have  been  confined  to  bed  be- 
fore the  aristocracy  were  plotting  a  recovery  of  their  an- 
cient power.  Herod  was  despatched  to  Alexandria  with 
a  fleet  and  a  commission  from  the  Senate  as  its  general,*"^ 
—  a  commission  which  violated  the  Eoman  constitution, 
that  had  been  in  force  for  almost  seventy  years.'^^  He 
landed  furtively  in  that  city,'^  and  early  in  October  Flac- 

7*  When  Antonia,  at  Herod's  request,  besought  an  investigation,  Ti- 
berius replied,  "...  but  if  when  [Eutyches,  freedman  and  coachman 
of  Herod]  is  put  to  the  torture,  liis  statements  shall  be  verified,  beware 
lest  [Herod],  while  desiring  to  punish  his  freedman,  shall-  rather  invoke 
justice  on  himself."  —  Josephus,  Antiq.  18,  6,  6.  Antonia,  at  Her- 
od's request,  again  urged  the  matter,  and  he  answered,  "  1  shall  do  it  not 
of  my  own  judgment,  but  driven  to  it  by  your  importunity-"  —  HjicI. 
Herod,  when  his  request  was  granted,  became  frightened  (Ibid.),  and  re- 
sorted to  supplication. 

''^  "In  the  eighth  month  [August]  a  severe  disease  attacked  Caius."  — 
Philo,  Emhassij,  2,  p.  682.  His  alleged  dedication,  August  31,  A.  D.  37, 
of  a  hero  monument  [temple  ?]  to  Augustus  (Dio  Cass.  59,  7)  is  probably, 
or,  if  the  date  on  a  medal,  A.  d.  39,  be  adopted  (see  Dio  Cass.,  Vol.  6, 
p.  317,  note  66),  is  certainly  a  patrician  falsehood.  Cp.  Ch.  VIII. 
note  55. 

"^  Bulletins  concerning  the  progress  of  the  disease  and  recovery  were 
carried,  if  we  can  trust  Philo  (Against  Flaccus,  c.  3,  Paris  edit.  p.  663)  to 
the  extremities  of  the  empire.  When  the  sickness  threatened  a  fatal  issue, 
he  appointed  his  sister  Drusilla  (Sueton.  Calig.  24)  heir  to  the  empire. 

""  Philo,  Against  Flaccus,  c.  6,  Paris  edit.  p.  666, 11.  29,  30. 

■^8  Compare  note  33  and  text  prefixed.  Tacitus  says  {An.  2,  .59)  that 
Augustus  forbade  any  senator  to  visit  Egypt  without  his  permission. 

"•^  Herod  Agrippa  "embarked  with  his  followers  and  had  a  fair  voyage, 
and  so  a  few  days  afterwards  he  arrived  at  his  journey's  end,  unforeseen 
and  unexpected,  having  commanded  the  captains  [])ilots]  ...  to  furl 
their  sails,  and  keep  a  short  distance  out  of  sight  in  the  open  sea,  until 
it  became  late  in  the  evening  and  dark,  and  then  at  night  he  entered  the 
port,  that  when  he  disembarked  he  might  find  all  the  citizens  buried  in 


§viii.]       SYMPATHY   BETWEEN   THE   AEISTOCRACIES.  101 

cus  was  kidnapped  at  a  friend's  table  and  carried  off  by 
night.^*^  If  a  thread,  at  least,  of  truth  runs  through 
Philo's  subsequent  narrative,  he  was  carried  to  Italy,  put 
through  the  form  of  what  must  have  been  a  mock  trial, 
banished,  and  subsequently  murdered.^^  The  motive  for  his 
murder  may  have  been,  that,  with  recovery  of  Caligula, 
riaccus  would  acquire  means  of  redress.  His  house  had 
been  the  abode  of  taste  and  refinement.  Its  contents,  con- 
trary to  law  and  precedent,  M'ere  appropriated  by  some  of 
the  thieves  into  whose  hands  he  had  fallen.^^  xhe  allega- 
tion, that  the  goods  were  seized  on  behalf  of  Caligula, 

sleep,  and  so,  without  any  one  seeing  him,  he  might  arrive  at  the  house 
of  the  man  who  was  to  be  his  entertainer.  With  so  much  modesty 
[wiliness  ?]  then  did  this  man  arrive,  wishing  >f  it  were  possible  to  enter 
without  being  perceived  by  any  one  in  the  city."  —  Philo,  Against  Flac- 
cus,  c.  5,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  665. 

^  Afterwards,  in  concert  with  Herod  Agrippa.,  "  Bassus,  the  centurion, 
was  sent  from  Italy ;  ...  he  ordered  the  captain  of  tlie  ship  to  keep  out 
in  the  open  sea  till  sunset,  intending  to  enter  the  city  unexpectedly,  in 
order  that  Flaccus  might  not  be  aware  of  his  coming.  .  .  . 

"And  when  the  evening  came,  the  ship  entered  the  harbor,  and  Bas- 
sus, disembarking  with  his  own  soldiers,  advanced,  ncdther  recognizing 
nor  being  recognized  by  any  one ;  and  on  his  road  finding  a  soldier  who 
was  one  of  the  quaternions  of  the  guard,  he  ordered  him  to  show  him 
the  house  of  his  captain.   .  .   . 

"And  when  he  heard  that  he  was  supping  at  some  person's  house  in 
company  with  Flaccus,  he  did  not  relax  in  his  speed,  but  hastened  on- 
ward to  the  dwelling  of  his  entertainer;  .  .  .  and  lying  in  ambush  at  a 
short  distance,  he  sent  forward  one  of  his  own  followers  to  reconnoitre, 
disguising  him  like  a  servant.  ...  So  he,  entering  into  the  banqueting- 
room,  as  if  he  were  the  servant  of  one  of  the  guests,  examined  every- 
thing accurately,  and  then  returned  and  gave  information  to  Bassus. 
And  he,  when  he  had  learnt  the  unguarded  condition  of  the  entrances, 
and  the  small  number  of  the  people  who  were  with  Flaccus,  .  ■  . 
hastened  forward,  and  entered  suddenly  into  the  supper-room,  he  and 
the  soldiers  with  him,  .  .  .  and  surrounded  Flaccus.  .  .  .  The  time  of 
his  arrest  .  .  .  was  the  general  festival  of  the  Jews  at  the  time  of  the 
autumnal  equinox." — Philo,  Agninst  Flaccus,  cc.  12 -H,  Bohn's  trans, 
altered  ;  Paris  edit.  pp.  672  -  674. 

81  Fhilo,  Against  Flaccus,  cc.  18, 19,  21 ;  Paris  edit  pp.  678,  679,  6S1. 

**  "  He  was  immediately  stripped  of  all  his  possessions,  both  of  those 


102  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  V. 

may  have  been  invented  at  the  time,  as  a  means  of  ward- 
ing off  opposition,  or  subsequently  to  cloak  crime,  or  the 
explanation  may  be  that  below  in  note  82. 

The  conspirators  at  Alexandria  must  have  had  partial 
success.  AVhether  they  were  put  down  by  a  lieutenant 
of  Flaccus,  or  by  some  one  sent  from  Eome,  can  only  be 
conjectured,  for  Philo's  object  was  not  to  illuminate,  but 
to  obscure,  the  whole  matter.  Thirty-eight  members  of 
the  Jewish  council  were  arrested. ^^  Philo's  brother,  per- 
haps immediately,  perhaps  after  tedious  prosecution,  was 
put  in  chains  and  remained  so  until  Caligula's  death.^* 

Macro,  the  experienced  officer,  was  appointed  —  pos- 
sibly after  a  preliminary  visit — to  take  charge  at  Alex- 
andria. Philo  and  his  companions  came  in  midwinter  to 
Eome,  doubtless  that  they  might  plead  for  the  conspira- 
tors. A  passage  in  Suetonius  renders  probable  that  they 
endeavored  to  influence  Caligula  through  his  grand- 
mother, Antonia,^^  who  had  been  an  intimate  friend  of 
Herod's  mother,  and  wdiose  fiscal  agent  was  Alexander 

which  he  inherited  from  his  parents  and  of  all  that  he  had  acquired  him- 
self, having  been  a  man  who  took  especial  delight  in  what  was  or- 
namental ;  .  .  .  and  besides  that  he  collected  a  vast  number  of  servants, 
carefully  selected  for  their  excellencies  and  accomplishments,  ...  for 
everj'  one  of  them  was  excellent  in  that  employment  to  which  he  was 
appointed,  so  that  he  was  looked  upon  as  either  the  most  excellent  of 
all  servants  in  that  place,  or,  at  all  events,  as  inferior  to  no  one. 

"  And  there  is  a  very  clear  proof  of  this  in  the  fact  tliat,  though  there 
were  a  vast  number  of  properties  confiscated,  and  sold  for  the  public 
benefit,  which  belonged  to  persons  who  had  been  condemned,  that  of 
Flaccus  alone  was  assigned  to  the  Emperor,  with  perhaps  one  or  two 
MORE,  in  order,  that  the  law  which  had  been  established  .  .  .  might 
not  be  violated."— Philo,  ^ (/a uwC  Flaccus,  IS,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 
'One  or  two  more,'  means  perhaps  that  other  prominent  members  of  the 
popular  party  had  been  murdered.  Caligula  may  have  retaken  their 
property  from  the  conspirators  and  returned  it  to  their  relatives.  Cp. 
Kote  G,  footnote  89. 

^^  Philo,  Ariainst  Flaccus,  c.  10,  Paris  edit.  p.  670. 

^*  Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  5,  1. 

85  "  To  his  grandmother,  Antonia,  who  asked  a  private  interview, 
[Calii^ula]  denied  it  except  with  the  condition  that  Macro,  the  prefect 
should  be  present."  — Sueton.  Calig.  c.  23. 


§viii.]       SYMPATHY   BETWEEN   THE   ARISTOCRACIES.  103 

Lysimachus,  the  chief  offender.  Her  death,  not  long 
afterwards,  may  have  been  hastened  by  grief  at  the  mis- 
deeds of  those  whom  she  had  trusted. 

In  A.  D.  38,  probably  in  the  latter  part  of  it,  Macro  dis- 
appears from  history .^^  Means  must  have  been  found  by 
the  conspirators  to  put  him  out  of  the  way. 

A  twofold  embassy  was  sent  from  Alexandria  to 
Eome,^"  probably  with  reference  to  this  attempted  revolt. 
Philo,  who  headed  the  Jewish  delegation,  wrote  an  ac- 
count of  their  mission  which  covers  eighty-one  pages  in 
Bohn's  translation.  But  no  attention  on  the  reader's 
part  will  enable  him  to  detect  in  this  narrative  any  ob- 
ject for  the  embassy  which  could  have  justified  either 
party  in  going  ten  steps  to  have  it  settled. 

When  Caligula  had  l3een  murdered  and  the  patricians 
came  into  power,  Philo's  brother  was  set  at  liberty. 
Concurrent  therewith  a  revolt  of  the  Alexandrine  Jews 
took  place,^^  —  a  revolt  certainly  from  among  such  as  did 
not  sympathize  with  their  alabarch  or  his  doings. 

Of  Philo's  two  political  works,  that  Against  Flaccus 
and  probably  also  the  Embassy  to  Cams  were  written 
several  years  after  the  events  to  which  they  refer. ^^  A 
plausible  surmise  would  be  that  after  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Eome  in  A.  D,  52  by  Claudius,  Philo  saw  strong 
need  of  diverting  from  himself  and  associates  the  indii'- 

^  According  to  Dio  Cassius  (59,  lO),  Caligula  "forced  (Macro)  to 
the  necessity  of  suicide,  though  he  had  appointed  him  over  Egypt." 
This  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  patrician  accounts  such  as  attribute 
the  death  of  Sejanus  to  Tiberius.  The  desperate  position  of  the  rebel 
leaders  at  Alexandria  and  the  dangerous  position  of  those  at  Eome  ren- 
ders not  improbable  that  some  among  them  effected  Macro's  murder  and 
called  it  suicide. 

^T  Josephus  says  {Antiq.  18,  8,  ])  that  each  delegation  consisted  of 
three  individuals.  Philo  (Embassy  to  Caius,  c.  45,  p.  730)  mentions  that 
the  Jewish  one  numbered  five.  The  heathen  delegation  was  headed  by 
Apion. 

^  Josephus,  Jntiq.  19,  5,  2. 

*^  Philo  speaks  in  his  work  Against  Flaccus  (c.  18,  p.  677,  lines  17,  18) 
of  the  matters  there  treated  as  already  antiquated.  In  the  beginning  of 
his  Embassy  he  treats  himself  as  aged  and  gray-headed. 


104  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  V. 

nation  of  Jews  generally  at  his  sympathy  and  co-operation 
with  that  Eoman  aristocracy  whose  tool  Claudius  was. 
The  need  of  this  diversion  would  not  be  diminished  by 
the  fact  that  Philo's  nephew  had  turned  heathen  and  ac- 
cepted office  from  Claudius  as  stated  in  note  70. 

The  two  works  above  mentioned  justify  disbelief  in 
Philo's  truthfulness.  The  one  Against  Flaccus  represents 
that  a  governor,  remarkable  during  five  years  for  clear- 
headed equity,  became,  in  the  six  months  before  he  was 
kidnapped,  a  model  of  injustice.^*'  Yet  the  same  work 
states  —  and  jDerhaps  intends  as  a  reason  why  he  was 
kidnapped  instead    of  being  openly  arrested  —  that   he 

was   "  EXCEEDINGLY  esteemed irXua-Tio  fxepei  Trj<;  ttoAcws 

by  nearly  all  the  city,"^^ — a  remark  which  must  have 
included  Jews,  since  Philo  would  otherwise  have  stated  in 
self-defence,  that  only  Gentiles  retained  a  good  opinion 
of  Lim. 

Philo  attributes  to  Sejanus  the  measures  against  the 
Jews  in  the  time  of  Tiberius.^^  We  have,  however,  con- 
vincing evidence  that  they  proceeded  from  the  patricians,^^ 
who  afterwards  murdered  Sejanus,  and  who  were  allies 
certainly  of  Philo's  brother  and  almost  unquestionably 
of  himself. 

He  fabricates,  and  puts  into  the  mouth  of  ]\Iacro,  a 
statement  that  the  latter  had  carried  out  the  intentions 
of  Tiberius  against  Sejanus.^*     But  Philo  lived  when  he 

^  For  this  alleged  change  of  an  upright  man  into  everything  blame- 
worthy, Philo  assigns  two  causes.  The  first  is  grief  over  the  death  of 
Tiberius,  —  a  reason  so  utterly  absurd  that  its  author  cannot  be  credited 
■with  believing  it.  The  second  is,  that  the  death  of  Tiberius  (grandson 
of  the  Emperor  Tiberius),  and  subsequently  the  death  of  Macro,  convinced 
Flaccus  that  he  must  look  for  support  to  the  anti-Jewish  party. 
{Against  Flaccus,  cc.  3,  4.)  But  the  death  of  these  men  occurred,  as  Philo 
well  knew,  subsequently  to  the  kidnapping  of  Flaccus,  so  that  his 
gubernatorial  conduct,  as  Philo  also  knew,  could  not  have  been  influ- 
enced by  it. 

81  Philo,  Against  Flaccus,  c.  13  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  673,  line  20. 

92  Against  Flaccus,  c.  1 ;  Embassy  to  Caius,  c.  2-1. 

»3  SeeCh.  VIII.  §i. 

^  Embassy  to  Caius,  c.  6 ;  Paris  edit.  p.  6SC,  line  1. 


§viii.]       SYMPATHY   BETWEEN   THE   AKISTOCRACIES.  105 

cannot  possibly  have  been  ignorant  that  Tiberius  and 
Macro  were  friends  of  Sejanus,  who  had  punished,  not 
him,  but  his  murderers.^^ 

The  proceedings  against  the  Alexandrine  conspirators 
were  in  course  of  execution  in  a.  d.  38,  after  the  death 
of  the  emperor's  sister,  Drusilkj^*^  and  about  August  31,  the 
date  of  Caligula's  birthday.^^  Yet  Philo  represents  them 
as  carried  out  under  the  direction  of  Flaccus,  who,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  statement,  had  been  kidnapped  in  the 
preceding  year. 

Herod,  l)y  his  regal  splendor,  outshone  the  governor.^^ 
Yet  PMlo  ascribes  to  modesty  the  furtive  entry  of  this 
would-be  king  into  Alexandria.^^ 

The  Senate,  a  body  hostile  to  Caligula  and  greedy  to 
recover  its  ancient  power,  had  made  Herod  its  general  ^^^ 
in  a  province  or  provinces  where  it  for  nearly  seventy 
years  had  been  destitute  of  control.  It  authorized  him 
to  override  Caligula's  governor,^*^^  and  this  during  Calig- 
ula's illness.  Yet  Philo  wishes  us  to  believe  that  Herod 
had  been  appointed  king  by  Caligula. 

The  stay  of  Herod  at  Alexandria  was  evidently  for 
weeks  or  months. ^"^^     Yet  Philo  wishes  us  to  believe  that 

**  See  Appendix,  Note  G,  §  iir. 

^  Against  Flaccus,  c.  8  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  668,  line  17. 

^  Against  Flaccus,  c.  10;  Paris  edit.  p.  670,  line  42. 

^  "  He  attracts  all  eyes  towards  himself  when  they  see  the  array  of 
sentinels  and  body-guards  around  him  adorned  with  silvered  and  gilded 
arms."  Against  Flaccus,  c.  5,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  655,  lines 
31  -  33. 

^  See  note  79. 

i""  See  reference  in  note  77. 

101  "The  residence  here  of  this  man  means  j^our  ruin  ;  for  he  is  in- 
vested with  higher  authority  and  dignity  than  yourself."  —  Against  Flac- 
cus, c.  5  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  665,  line  30. 

102  <<  They  [the  populace]  having  had  the  cue  given  them,  spent  all 
their  days  reviling  the  king  in  the  public  schools,  and  stringing  together 
all  sorts  of  gibes  to  turn  him  into  ridicule  ;  and  at  times  they  employed 
poets  who  compose  farces.  .  .  .  When  ...  he  [an  insane  man]  had 
received  all  the  insignia  of  royal  authority,  and  had  been  dressed  and 
adorned  like  a  king,  the  young  men  bearing  sticks  on  their  shoulders 


106  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  V. 

the  cause  of  his  coming  to  Alexandria  was  his  haste  ^^^  to 
reach  a  kingdom  alleged  to  have  been  given  him  in  Ju- 
daea or  Syria,  countries  which  he  probably  neitlier  ruled 
nor  visited  during  Caligula's  reign. 

PMlo's  effort  at  dramatic  effect  causes  increased  dis- 
trust of  his  trutlifulness,  and  the  speeches  which  he 
fabricates  for  Flaccus  indicate  a  hypocritical  willingness 
to  assume  divine  protection  for  aristocratic  misdeeds.^'^'* 

The  only  probable  inference  to  be  eliminated  from  his 
misrepresentations  is,  that  the  Senate  was  plotting  against 
Caligula.  It  wished,  as  twenty  years  previously,  to  de- 
tach one  or  more  provinces  from  subordination  to  the 
prince  and  subject  them  to  one  of  its  own  political  allies, 
as  a  preliminary  towards  re-establishment  of  aristocratic 
control.  It  needed  in  this  instance  co-operation  from  the 
Jewish  aristocracy,  which  had  to  be  bought  by  selecting 
a  Jew  as  intended  king.^^^     The  Jewish  aristocracy  must 

stood  on  each  side  of  him  instead  of  spear-bearers,  in  imitation  of  the 
body-guards  of  the  king,  and  then  others  came  up,  some  as  if  to  salute 
him,  and  others  making  as  if  they  wished  to  plead  their  cause  before 
him,  and  others  pretending  to  wish  to  consult  with  him  about  the  affairs 
of  the  state." —  Philo,  Against  Flaccus,  cc.  5,  6,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Paris 
edit.  pp.  665,  666. 

103  "  Yj^g  merchant  vessels  which  set  forth  from  that  harbor  were  fast 
sailers,  and  .  .  .  the  pilots  were  most  experienced  men,  who  guided 
their  ships  like  skilful  coachmen  guide  their  liorses,  keeping  them  straight 
in  the  proper  course."  —  Philo,  Afjainst  Flaccus,  c.  5,  Bohn's  trans.  ; 
Paris  edit.  p.  665. 

^"^  "It  is  said  ...  he  would  go  forth  out  of  his  farm-house  and 
raise  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  .  .  .  would  cry  out,  '  0  King  of  gods  and 
men  !  j^ou  are  not,  then,  indifferent  to  the  Jewish  nation,  nor  are  the  as- 
sertions which  they  relate  with  respect  to  your  providence  false  ;  but 
those  men  who  say  that  that  people  has  not  you  for  their  champion  and 
defender,  are  far  from  a  con-ect  opinion.'"  —  Against  Flaccus,  c.  20, 
Bohn's  trans. ;  Paris  edit.  p.  679. 

^"^  Jews,  according  to  Pliilo  {Against  Flaccus,  c.  8  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  668, 
lines  9-12),  occupied  nearly  the  whole  of  two  wards,  and  not  a  few  were 
scattered  through  the  remaining  three  wards,  of  Alexandria.  This  ex- 
plains tlie  large  control  of  the  Jewish  council,  or  Sanhedrim,  which  is 
implied  in  the  senatorial  effort  to  operate  through  Jewish  allies. 


§ix.]  MUKDEE   OF   BODY-GUARDS.  107 

at  first  have  had  enough  success  to  make  them  think  of 
exacting  terms  for  capitulatiou.^*^^ 

Josephus  makes  no  mention  of  Flaccus,  nor  of  any  per- 
secution suffered  by  Alexandrine  Jews  during  his  rule, 
nor,  in  fact,  during  Caligula's  reign.  He  does  mention  an 
insurrection  after  Caligula's  death  at  the  accession  of 
Claudius,  an  insurrection  doubtless  of  the  popular  party. 
The  sufferings  of  the  Jews  at  this  last-mentioned  period 
from  PATEiciAN  oppression  have  not  improbably  been  as- 
cribed by  Philo  to  Flaccus,  a  ruler  from  the  popular 
PARTY  four  years  earlier.  That  we  may  comprehend  the 
possibility  of  such  untruth,  we  must  remember  that  in 
the  reign  of  Claudius  (when  Philo  probably  wrote)  it  was 
unsafe  to  contradict  patrician  falsehood,  as  the  fate  of 
more  than  one  man  in  the  arena  at  Eome  indicates.^^^ 
Gross  falsehoods  in  the  patrician  interest  passed  without 
public  correction,  because  correction  would  have  been 
dangerous  to  the  maker.  If  the  Jews  had  been  maltreated 
and  oppressed  during  Caligula's  reign,  there  would  seem 
no  reason  for  the  failure  of  Josephus  to  mention  it.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  their  aristocracy  were  the  aggressors, 
we  can  compreliend  his  remarkable  brevity-^*^^ 

When  we  come  to  the  reign  of  Caligula,  we  shall  find 
that  his  alleged  appointment  of  Herod  Agrippa  was 
probably  a  fiction  of  later  date  to  cover  assumption  by 
the  latter  of  regal  authority,  and  that  his  alleged  purpose 
of  erecting  a  statue  in  the  temple  was  equally  a  fiction 
intended  to  divert  odium  from  patrician  Jews. 

§  IX.     Murder  of  Body -Guar  els. 

The  relative  view  of  the  patrician  as  compared  with 
the  popular  party,  touching  sanctity  of  human  life,  has 

106  Philo  attributes  to  Flaccus,  what  cannot  well  have  happened  until 
after  he  was  kidnapped  ;  namely,  that  he  "  sent  for  our  rulers,  apparently 
to  effect  a  reconciliation  between  them  and  the  remainder  of  the  city."  — 
Against  Flaccus,  c.  10  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  670,  lines  12,  13. 

^'^  Compare  pages  76,  77. 

108  u^  dissension  having  ai-isen  at  Alexandria  between  the  Jewish  in- 
habitants and  the  Greeks,  tliree  ambassadors  chosen  from  either  side  came 
to  Caius."  —  Josephus,  Antiq.,  18,  8,  1. 


108  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  V. 

received  some  illustration  in  a  portion  of  the  preceding 
sections.  It  is  additionally  illustrated  by  the  fact,  that 
the  murder  of  body-guards,  mentioned  in  one  or  two  in- 
stances by  historians,  proceeded  from  princes  of  patrician 
politics.109 

§  X.      Tivo  Senatorial  Usurpations. 

Among  senatorial  usurpations  two  claim  special  atten- 
tion from  the  vantage  which  they  alTorded  the  aristocracy 
in  contests  with  the  prince  and  people.  One  of  these 
occurred  in  A.  D.  14,  just  before  the  accession  of  Tiberius. 
The  other  was  six  years  later,  during  an  effort  to  over- 
throw him.  The  success  of  the  Senate  in  these  two  in- 
stances was  partly  due  to  an  earlier  plot  whereby  all 
advocates  of  popular  rights  had  been  driven  out  of  it,!^^ 
and  partly  due  to  that  control  which  the  reactionary 
residue  had  thenceforward  exercised  over  Augustus,  over 
legislation,  and  over  the  distribution  of  offices.     Augus- 

^°^  "  Galba's  entry  into  the  city  of  Rome,  after  the  massacre  of  several 
thousands  of  unarmed  soldiers,  formed  a  disastrous  omen  of  things  to 
come."  —  Tac.  Hist.  1,  n,  Bohn's  trans.  "Without  a  request,  of  his 
own  free  will,  he  could  consign  to  the  sword  so  many  thousand  innocent 
soldiers.  My  heart  i-ecoils  witli  liorror,  when  I  rellect  on  the  disastrous 
day  on  whicli  he  made  his  public  entry  into  the  cit}^ ;  and  on  that  his 
only  victory,  when,  after  receiving  the  submission  of  the  suppliant 
soldiers,  he  ordered  the  whole  body  to  be  decimated  in  the  view  of  the 
people."  —  Otho's  Speech  in  Tac,  Hist.  1,  37,  Bohn's  trans. 

At  an  earlier  date  Claudius  had  been  concerned  in  a  conspiracy  against 
Caligula,  one  of  whose  murderers,  Sabinus,  committed  suicide.  Another, 
Chi'erea,  as  also  Lupus,  who  had  murdered  Caligula's  wife,  were  exe- 
cuted, probably  as  a  concession  to  the  popular  party.  The  following 
extract  blends  their  death,  doubtless,  with  that  of  anti-patrician  officers. 
Claudius  extended  amnesty  to  all  (see,  however,  pages  75,  76),  "only  a 
few  tribunes  and  centurions  from  those  [?]  who  had  conspired  against 
Caius  being  excepted,  not  only  for  example's  sake,  but  because  he  knew 
that  they  had  demanded  his  own  death  also."  —  Suetonius,  Claud. 
c.  11.    "Chserea,  therefore,  was  led  to  death,  and  with  him  Lujius  and  .\ 

CONSIDERABLE    NUMBER    OF     RoMANS." — JosephuS,    Antiq.    19,    4,    T). 

' '  Claudius  having  taken  out  of  the  way  every  soldier  whom  he  sus- 
pected."—  Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  5,  J. 
"0  SeeCh.  VII.  §  viii. 


§  X.]         TWO  SENATORIAL  USURPATIONS.         109 

tiis  but  partially  emancipated  himself  from  it  towards  the 
close  of  his  life. 

1.  In  A.  D.  14,  when  Tiberius  became  prince  ^^^  or  pre- 
siding officer  of  the  Senate,  he  must  have  found  civil  and 
military  offices  mainly  filled  by  partisans  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, a  portion  of  whom  were  plotting  his  overthrow. 
The  C omit  la,  or  popular  assemblies,  had,  in  the  time  of 
Augustus,  been  deprived  of  some,  or,  if  Tacitus  do  not 
exaggerate,  of  nearly  all  power.^^^  The  Senate,  while 
Augustus,  at  a  distance  from  Eome,  was  on  his  death-bed, 
seized  the  moment  to  abolish  these  assemblies,  so  that 
no  laws  could  be  enacted,  nor  candidates  elected,  save  by 
itself.  An  election  was  due.^^^  The  Senate  took  the 
matter  into  its  own  hands,  ignoring  utterly  any  popular 
electoral  right. 

Indignation  or  lack  of  opportunity  prevented  at  first 
any  nomination  of  anti-senatorial  candidates.  The  pop- 
ular party  cannot  have  wished  to  recognize  such  an 
election.  This  feeling  must,  after  a  year's  experience, 
have  yielded  to  a  desire  of  mitigating  the  evil  which  it 
could  not  cure.     Opposing  candidates  were,  in  a.  d.  15, 

"1  See  views  of  Tiberius  touching  the  nature  of  his  office  in  Appendix, 
Note  G,  foot-note  30  ;  and  compare  in  Note  G  the  conclusion  of  §  iv. 

^''■^  Augustus,  after  defeating  Antony,  had  deprived  the  provincial 
towns  (Dio  Cass.  51,  2)  of  their  popular  assemblies.  He,  or  the  aristoc- 
racj'  in  his  name,  gradually,  during  his  reign,  deprived  the  Comitia,  or 
popular  assemblies  at  Rome,  if  Tacitus  (An.  1,  l."))  can  be  credited,  of 
everything  but  a  shadow  of  their  former  power. 

"3  Augustus  died  August  19,  A.  D.  14.  Consular  elections  for  the  en- 
suing year  were  usually  (Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  353,  col.  1)  in  July. 
"The  Comitia  for  elections  took  place  every  year  at  a  certain  period, 
though  it  depended  ON  the  Senate  and  the  consuls  as  to  whether 
they  wished  the  elections  to  take  place  earlier  or  later  than  usual.  .  .  . 
The  president  at  the  Comitia  was  the  same  magistrate  who  convoked 
them,  and  this  right  was  a  privilege  of  the  consuls,  and  in  their  absence 
of  the  praetors."  —  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  353,  col.  1.  It  is  plain 
from  Tacitus  [An.  1,  81)  that  the  consuls  for  A.  D.  14  were  elected  before 
the  accession  of  Tiberius.  The  Senate  doubtless  forbore  to  specify  a  day 
for,  and  the  existing  consuls,  acting  in  the  interest  of  the  Senate,  for- 
bore to  convoke,  the  Comitia,  so  that  the  people  had  no  opportunity  to  vote. 


110  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  V. 

put  in  nomination.^^*  The  position  of  Tiberius  as  presid- 
ing officer  caused  the  nominations  to  pass  through  his 
hands. 

After,  or  before  the  senatorial  faction  liad  rebelled 
against  Tiberius,  in  A.  D.  31,  and  had  murdered  many  of 
the  popular  party,  the  Comitia  must,  in  a  limited  shape, 
or  otherwise,  have  been  restored  to  the  people.^^^  Fossi- 
ls* Tacitus,  as  usual,  cloaks  senatorial  misdeeds  \)y  attributing  them 
to  Tiberius,  and  (as  elsewhere,  see  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  122)  en- 
deavors to  convey  by  implication  and  pseudo-moralizing  what  he  does  not 
venture  distinctly  to  assert.  He  in  this  instance  wishes  his  reader  to  be- 
lieve that  Tiberius  transferred  the  Comitia  to  the  Senate,  or,  in  other 
words,  that  he  took  the  right  of  suffrage  from  his  political  friends,  and 
bestowed  it  exclusively  on  his  political  enemies.  Such  a  statement  needs 
no  refutation,  but  Tacitus  refutes  it  {An.  1,  81)  by  betraying  that  the 
consular  election  took  place  befoi-e  the  accession  of  Tiberius.  These  con- 
suls could  in  A.  D.  15,  as  their  predecessors  in  A.  D.  14,  omit  to  convoke 
the  popular  Comitia.     The  two  narratives  are  as  follows  :  — 

A.  D.  14.  A.  D.   15. 

"  The  elections  Comitia  were  then  "  Of  the  Comitia  for  the  creation 

first  transferred    from    the    Camjcnis  of  consuls,  which  took  place  IN  the 

[Martins,  that  is,  from  the  people]  to  keign   OF  Tiberius   for  the  first 

the  Senate  ;  for  though  the  [preced-  time  in  this  year,  and  in  each  suc- 

ing]  prince  had  conducted  all  affairs  cessive  year,  I  hardly  dare  affirm  auy- 

of  moment  at   his  pleasure,  yet,  till  thing,  so  different  are  tlie   accounts 

that  day,  some  were  still  transacted  about  it.     His  general  practice  was 

according  to   the   inclination  of  the  to  declare,    '  that  to  him  none  had 

tribes.     Neither  did  the  regret  of  the  signified    their    pretensions   but 

people  for  the  seizure  of  these  their  those  whose  names  he  had  deliv- 

ancient  rights  rise  higher  than  some  ered  to  the  consuls;    others,  too, 

impotent  grumbling ;  the  Senate,  too,  might  do  the  same,  if  they  had  confi- 

released  from  the  charge  of  buying  dence   in    their   interest   or  merits.' 

votes,  and  from  the  shame  of  begging  Sentiments    plausible    in    terms  ;    in 

them,  willingly  acquiesced  in  the  reg-  substance,  hollow  and  insidious  ;  and 

ulation  by  which  Tiberius  contented  the  greater  the  semblance  of  liberty 

himself  with  the  recommendation  (?)  with  which   they  were  covered,    the 

of  four  candidates  only,  to  be  accepted  more  remorseless  the  slavery  in  which 

without  opposition  or  canvassing."  —  they  would  issue."  —  Tac.  An.  1,  81, 

Tac.  An.  1, 15,  Bohn's  trans,  altered.  Bohn's  trans. 

11^  Under  the  year  32,  Dio  Cassius  says,  that  Tiberius  "  sent  them 
(the  names  of  candidates)  into  the  Senate  .  .  .  and  aftci-wards  those  [who 
had  been  selected  by  the  Senate]  entering  the  assembly  of  centuries,  or  of 


§x.]         TWO  SENATOKIAL  USUEPATIONS.         Ill 

bly  the  Senate,  after  the  death  of  Tiberius,  again  appro- 
priated to  themselves  all  electoral  rights.  The  effort  of 
Caligula  towards  restoring  popular  assemblies  with  their 
legislative  and  elective  powers  was  no  doubt  a  cliief 
cause  of  his  being  assassinated. 

2.  In  A.  D.  18  and  19,  the  Senate  had  sent  Germanicus, 
a  nephew  of  Tiberius,  into  Syria  and  elsewhere/^*^  to 
override  his  uncle's  authority,  and  to  manage  matters  in 
the  interest  of  the  patricians.  The  death  of  Germanicus, 
in  A.  D.  20,  and  the  activity  of  Piso,  the  Emperor's  lieuten- 
ant, baffled  their  schemes.  They  thereupon  undertook  to 
wreak  their  vengeance  upon  Piso.  Charges  were  pre- 
ferred against  him  which,  according  to  Eoman  law  and 
custom,  should  have  been  tried  in  a  praetor's  court.  The 
Senate,  by  a  usurpation  of  authority,  brought  the  case 
before  itself,  and  condemned  him.  This  usurpation  must 
have  caused  a  fierce  contest  between  the  senatorial  and 
popular  parties,  in  which  the  efforts,  probably  strenuous 
ones,  of  Tiberius,  must  have  been  on  the  popular  side 
and  in  behalf  of  Piso.  Tacitus,  with  whom  crimes  in  the 
interest  of  patricianism,  at  least  when  committed  by  the 
Senate,  were  things  to  be  overlooked,  omits  any  narrative 
of  the  struggle.  He  even  omits  direct  mention  of  the 
fact.  What  he  does  is,  to  put  into  the  mouth  of  Tiberius 
a  speech  containing  an  allusion  to  this  illegal  transfer 
of  jurisdiction.  The  allusion  is  so  worded  as  to  convey 
the  false  impression  that  Tiberius  had  approved  the  trans- 
fer or  deemed  it  a  matter  of  small  consequence.^^^     The 

tribes,  in  whictiever  their  election  belonged,  were,  because  of  ancient 
form,  voted  for,  as  in  appearance,  at  least,  is  yet  done." — Dio  Cass.  58, 
20.  Unless  Dio  copied  the  concluding  remark  inadvertently  from  some 
earlier  writer,  the  form  of  popular  election  must  have  existed  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  third  century. 

11*'  The  authorization  is  placed  by  Tacitus  {An.  2,  43)  in  A.  T).  17. 
Germanicus  set  out  in  A.  D.  18.  The  concerted  effort  at  rebellion  took 
place  in  A.  d.  19.     See  Ch.  VIII.  §  i. 

117  "  We  (?)  have  granted  to  Germanicus  [that  is,  to  his  partisans]  solely 
this  extra-legal  [advantage],  that  inquisition  concerning  his  death  should 
be  made  in  the  Senate-house  rather  than  the  forum  ;  before  the  Senate 
rather  than  before  judges.     Let  other  things  be  treated  with  like  mod- 


112  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  V. 

effort  at  rebellion  will  be  more  fully  detailed  liereafter.^^^ 
The  pretext  for  usurpation  of  jurisdiction  is  matter  for 
conjecture.^^^ 

§  XI.  Herod  Agrippa,  Senior. 
The  earlier  history  of  Herod  is  elsewhere  mentioned.^^o 
His  mother  had  been  an  intimate  friend  of  Antonia.  He 
perhaps,  because  of  this,  had  been  preceptor  for  a  short 
time  to  the  grandson  of  Antonia,  who  was  also  grandson 
of  Tiberius.^^^  While  thus  engaged,  Herod,  as  we  may 
judge  from  his  extravagant  habits,^^^  must  have  become 
a  companion  of  the  aristocracy,  and  perhaps  of  their  plots. 
At  a  later  date  he  visited  Tiberius  at  Caprete,  probably  as 
their  emissary.  He  was  put  under  arrest,  but  at  Calig- 
ula's accession  shared  the  amnesty  granted  by  the  latter. 
Some  months  later  he  headed  a  rebellion  against  Caligula. 
The  story  of  Philo  and  his  coadjutors, —  copied  by  Jo- 
sephus,  —  that  the  latter  gave  Herod  a  kingdom,  is  cloubt- 

ERATiON.  Let  no  one  he  influenced  [against  Piso]  by  the  tears  (!)  of  [my 
son]  Drusus,  nor  by  my  gi'ief,  (!)  nor  yet  [in  favor  of  Piso]  by  fictions 
against  us. "  —  Tacitus,  An.  3,  12.  This  is  one  of  the  accustomed 
methods,  copied  or  invented,  by  which  Tacitus  endeavors  to  render  Ti- 
berius responsible  for  the  wrong-doings  of  his  senatorial  opponents. 

"8  See  Ch.  VIII.  §  I. 

11^  The  Senate  which  in  A.  B.  14  abrogated,  by  ignoring,  the  Comitia, 
may  in  a.  p.  20  have  treated  the  judicial  power  of  these  assemblies  as 
transferred  to  itself.  "The  Comitia  Ceiituriata  were  in  the  first  place 
the  highest  court  of  appeal,  .  .  .  and  in  the  second  they  had  to  try  all 
offences  committed  against  the  state,  ...  no  case  involving  the  life  of 
a  Eoman  citizen  could  be  decided  by  any  other  court." —  Smith,  Did. 
ofAntiq.  p.  334,  col.  2.  Yet  jurisdiction  in  Piso's  case  belonged  properly 
(see  note  117)  to  judges,  —  convened,  as  it  would  seem  (Tac.  An.  2,  79), 
by  a  prretor ;  and  only,  perhaps,  in  the  event  of  condemnation  before 
such  a  court,  could  his  case  have  been  submitted  to  the  Comitia. 

12'  See  pp.  99,  100. 

121  Josephus,  Ayitiq.  17,  6,  0. 

12-  "  He  spent  a  gi-eat  deal  extravagantly  in  his  daily  wnj'  of  living, 
and  a  great  deal  in  the  immoderate  presents  he  made  ;  .  .  .  he  was  in  a 
little  time  reduced  to  poverty,  and  could  not  live  at  Rome  any  longer. 
Tiberius  also  forbade  the  [su('li  ?]  friends  of  his  deceased  son  to  come  into 
his  sight."  —  Josephus,  Aiitlq.  18,  6,  1,  Whistou's  trans. 


§xi.]  HEROD   AGRIPPA,   SENIOR.  113 

less  a  falsehood,  originating  with  tlie  conspirators,  and 
intended  to  obscure  their  crimes.  He  must  have  been 
brought  back  from  Alexandria  to  Rome  as  a  prisoner,  and 
cannot  have  seen  Judsea  until  after  Caligula's  death.^^^ 
Claudius,  who  was  under  senatorial  control,  gave  to  this 
M'orthless  man  a  large  kingdom  at  the  expense,  not  of 
senatorial  but  of  his  own  provinces,  and,  prompted  no 
doubt  by  others,  ratified  publicly  some  compact  with 
him.^''^^  The  son  of  Herod  was  detained  at  Rome.  The 
real  object  for  this  was  doubtless  that  he  might  be  a  host- 
age within  reach  of  the  Senate  to  secure  fidelity  towards 
their  interests  from  his  unprincipled  father.  The  need  of 
security  became  evident  afterwards.-^^^ 

1-^  Compare  notes  104,  105,  of  Ch.  VIII.  and  the  text  prefixed  to 
tliem.  Had  Herod  gone  to  Juda3a  as  king  during  Caligula's  reign,  he 
would  not  have  deferred  until  after  that  individual's  death  the  hanging 
up  in  the  temple  of  a  gold  chain  i^rofcssedhj  his  gift.  The  impiisonment 
by  Herod  of  Silas,  his  commander  of  cavalry  (Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  7,  1), 
is  attributed  to  his  recollecting  too  clearly  the  imprisonment  of  Herod,  at 
a  date,  perhaps,  when  the  latter  was  trying  to  represent  himself  as  en- 
dowed by  Caligula  with  a  kingdom.  He  may  have  shared  an  imprison- 
ment of  Herod  under  Caligula,  but  certainly  not  the  one  under  Tiberius. 

^2*  Claudius  "made  a  league  with  this  Agrippa,  confirmed  by  oaths,  in 
the  middle  of  the  forum  in  the  city  of  Rome."  —  Josephus,  Antiq.  19, 
6,  ],  Whiston's  trans. 

125  <'_As  for  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  that  were  adjoining  to  the  new 
city  [Bezetha],  he  repaired  them  at  the  expense  of  the  public,  and  built 
them  wider  in  breadth  and  higher  in  altitude ;  and  he  had  made  them  too 
.strong  for  all  human  power  to  abolish,  unless  Marcus,  the  then  president 
of  Syria,  had  by  letters  informed  Claudius  Csesar  of  what  he  was  doing. 
And,  when  Claudius  had  some  suspicion  of  attempts  for  innovation,  he 
sent  to  Agrippa  to  leave  off  the  building  of  those  walls  presently."  — 
Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  7,  2,  Whiston's  trans.  "There  came  to  him  An- 
tiochus,  king  of  Commagene  ;  Sampsigei'amus,  king  of  Emesa  ;  and  Cotys, 
who  was  king  of  the  Lesser  Armenia ;  and  Polemo,  who  was  king  of 
Pontus  ;  as  also  Herod,  his  brother,  who  was  king  of  Chalcis.  .  .  . 
While  these  kings  stayed  with  him,  Marcus,  the  president  of  Syria,  came 
thither.  .  .  .  Marcus  had  a  suspicion  what  the  meaning  could  be  of  so 
great  a  friendship  of  these  kings  one  with  another,  and  did  not  think  so 
close  an  agreement  of  so  many  potentates  to  be  for  the  interest  of  the 
Eomans.    He  therefore  sent  some  of  his  domestics  to  every  one  of  them, 

H 


114  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  V, 

Herod,  of  course,  like  others  of  his  class,  was  attentive 
to  outside  pious  observances,  such  as  niiglit  enable  his 
adherents  to  laud  his  religiousness.^^''  He  showed  him- 
self in  matters  of  social  and  political  life  a  thorough  dis- 
ciple of  the  Eoraan  aristocracy. ^2"  His  arrest  of  Peter  and 
James  is  said  (Acts  12,  3)  to  have  pleased  the  Jews, 
meaning,  doubtless,  the  political  conservatives.  Fortu- 
nately for  his  countrymen  his  reign  was  brief. 

§  XII.     Insinccriti/  of  Patrician  Hobbies. 

Political  parties  rarely  believe  all  that  they  profess. 
The  patrician  party  at  Home  was  not  only  no  exce])tion 
to  this,  but  a  striking,  if  not  at  times  an  unblushing,  illus- 
tration of  it.  Patrician  contempt  for  Greek  culture,  or 
dislike  for  anything  foreign,  meant  merely  distaste  for 
what  the  Senate  did  not  legally  control.  The  distaste 
disappeared  if  patrician  interests  could  be  thereby  sub- 
served. Any  dress  save  the  Roman  might,  in  a  period 
of  patrician  ascendency,  meet  dishonor  from  the  leaders  ^^ 

and  enjoined  them  to  go  their  ways  home  without  further  delay."  — 
Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  8,  l,  Whiston's  trans. 

126  fjei'od  "  was  exactly  careful  in  the  observance  of  the  [ceremonial] 
laws  of  his  country,  .  .  .  nor  did  any  day  pass  over  his  head  witliout  its 
appointed  sacrifice."  — Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  7,  ;',  Whiston's  trans. 

117  "  jjg  ^\^Q  showed  his  niagniticcnce  upon  the  theatre  [at  Berytusjin 
liis  great  number  of  gladiators  ;  and  there  it  was  that  he  exhibited  the 
several  antagonists,  in  order  to  please  the  spectators  ;  no  fewer,  indeed, 
than  seven  hundred  men  to  fight  with  seven  hundred  other  men  ;  and 
allotted  all  the  malefactoi'S  he  had  for  this  exercise,  that  both  the  male- 
factors might  receive  their  punishment,  and  that  this  operation  of  war 
might  be  a  recreation  in  peace.  And  thus  were  these  criminals  all  de- 
stroyed at  once."  —  Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  7,  •',  Whiston's  trans.  Those 
fourteen  hundred  men  may  have  included  some  criminals,  but  the  major- 
ity must  have  been  persons  politically  distasteful  to  Herod  and  his  party. 
Compare  opposite  views  by  Josephus  on  the  morality  of  similar  doings, 
in  Ch.  II.  note  26. 

^'^  Augustus  "gave  orders  to  the  ediles  not  to  permit,  in  future,  any 
Roman  to  be  present  in  the  forum  or  circus,  unless  they  took  off  their 
short  coats,  and  wore  the  toga."  —  SuetoainB,  August,  c.  40,  Bohn's 
trans. 


§xi].]  INSINCERITY    OF   PATIIICIAN    HOBBIES.  115 

of  that  party,  and  yet  its  leaders  would  at  other  times 
adopt  foreign  dress  as  a  means  of  winning  foreign  favor. ^^^ 
The  same  voices  that  decried  foreign  customs  and  servile 
descent  were  prompt  to  uphold  either  of  them  which 
could  be  made  subservient  to  patriciauism,  or  to  its  ally, 
heathenism.'^^  The  same  party  which  by  trickery  and 
violence  expelled  its  opponents  in  B.  C.  17  from  the  Senate,, 
under  pretext  of  purifying  that  body,  subsei^uently  in- 
troduced Gauls  rather  than  Eomans  into  it,  if  the  former 
were  more  in  sympathy  with  patriciauism. ^^^       Eoman 

^2*  According  to  Tacitus  (An.  2,  .w),  Gernianiciis  adopted  the  Gi-eek 
dress  at  Alexandi'ia,  as  Scipio  at  an  earlier  date  had  done  in  Sicily.  The 
former  was  engaged  in  a  patrician  rebellion  against  Tiberius,  and  the  lat- 
ter needed  Greek  help  against  the  Carthaginians. 

^^  "Considering  it  of  extreme  im^Jortance  to  preserve  the  Roman 
people  pure,  and  untainted  with  a  mixture  of  foreign  or  servile  blood, 
he  [Augustus]  not  only  bestowed  the  freedom  of  the  city  with  a  sparing 
hand,  but  laid  some  restriction  upon  the  practice  of  manumitting  slaves." 
—  Suetonius,  August,  c.  40,  Rohn's  trans.  "With  regard  to  the  religious 
ceremonies  of  foreign  nations,  he  was  a  strict  observer  of  those  which  had 
been  established  by  Ancient  Custom  ;  but  others  he  held  in  no  esteem. 
For,  having  been  initiated  at  Athens,  and  coming  afterwards  to  hear  a 
canse  at  Rome,  relative  to  the  privileges  of  the  priests  of  the  Attic  Ceres, 
when  some  of  the  mysteries  of  their  sacred  rites  were  to  be  inti'oduced  in 
the  pleadings,  he  dismissed  those  who  sat  npon  the  bench  as  judges  with 
him,  as  well  as  the  by-standers,  and  heard  the  argument  upon  those  points 
himself.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  not  only  declined,  in  his  progress 
through  Eg3'pt,  to  go  out  of  his  way  to  pay  a  visit  to  Apis,  but  he  likewise 
commended  his  grandson  Caius  for  not  paying  his  devotions  at  Jerusalem 
in  his  passage  through  Judaea."  —  Suetonius,  August.  93,  Bohn's  trans. 
The  things  herein  contemned  were  equally  old  as  those  commended. 

Compare  in  Ch.  VII.  note  95,  senatorial  action  whereby  the  priesthood 
of  Vesta  was  opened  to  children  of  persons  that  had  been  slaves,  for  this 
must  at  that  date,  as  we  may  infer  from  Sueton.  Claud.  24,  have  been 
what  was  alone  meant  by  children  of  freed  per.sons. 

131  'I  gy  ^  decree  of  the  fathers  .  .  .  the  jEduans  first  obtained  the 
privilege  of  admission  into  the  Roman  Senate,  in  consideration  of  their 
ancient  confederacy  with  Rome,  and  because  tluy  alone  of  all  tlie  Gauls  are 
entitled  the  brethren  of  the  Roman  people." — Tacitus,  An.  11,  -i."),  Bohn's 
trans.  This  was  in  A.  D.  48,  during  the  reactionary  reign  of  Claudi-.'s. 
The  measure  was  opposed  (Tac.  A71..  11,  as)  mainly,  no  doubt,  by  the 


116  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

citizens  who  believed  in  monotheism  or  popular  rights 
were  ejected.  Gauls  who  upheld  heathenism  and  patri- 
cian privileges  were,  when  it  suited  the  senatorial  party, 
introduced. 

Judaism  was  the  especial  abhorrence  of  patricians. 
Yet  their  leader,  Marcus  Vipsanius  Agrippa,  could  frater- 
nize with  Herod  and  laud  the  Jewish  temple  ;  and  they 
themselves  not  only  fraternized  with  the  Jewish  rulers  at 
Alexandria,  but  appointed  as  their  head  general  an  un- 
principled Jew. 

The  charges  of  Unbelief  seem  to  have  originated  ex- 
clusively with  patricians  ;  yet  when  their  party  came  into 
power  under  Claudius,  it  acknowledged  publicly  through 
that  emperor  its  utter  ignorance  of  the  religion  which  it 
was  defending,  and  it  summoned  as  teachers  slaves  from 
Etruria,  who  were  supposed  to  know  something  on  the 
subject.     On  slave  testimony  see  Ch.  VIII.  note  118. 


CHAPTEE   VI. 

BELIEF  OF  EOME's   IMPENDING  DESTEUCTION. 

§  I.     As  a  Precedent  of  the  New  Era. 

We  now  come  to  another  and  singular  evidence  of 
Jewish  influence,  a  belief,  namely,  of  Eorae's  destruction, 
imparted  by  the  conquered  Jews  to  no  small  portion  of 
their  conquerors. 

popular  party.  The  prince,  according  to  Tacitus  {An.  11,  24),  paid  no 
attention  to  the  opposition,  which  means  that  the  aristocracy  wlio  ruled 
him  cai-ed  nothing  for  an  argument  against  their  interests.  The  Gallic 
aristocracy  thus  selected  for  senatorial  privileges  had  no  doubt  common 
interests  with  that  at  Rome,  and  had  perhaps  heen  its  ally  in  the  con- 
spiracy against  Caligula.  Romans  were  about  the  same  time  (Dio  Cass. 
60,  11,  20)  expelled  from  the  Senate  on  the  charge  of  not  being  wealthy 
enough. 


§1.]  BELIEF   OF   ROME'S   IMPENDING    DESTRUCTION.        117 

The  Jews,  instead  of  looking  backward  for  a  golden 
era,  as  was  done  by  Greeks  and  Eomans,  anticipated 
theirs  in  the  future.  To  them  its  chief  feature  was  the 
universal  righteousness,  which  they,  unlike  their  heathen 
neighbors,  deemed  necessary  to,  and  sure  to  occasion, 
universal  prosperity.  Some  thought  that  Prophets,  or  a 
Prophet,  gifted  to  turn  the  hearts  of  mankind  toward 
their  God,  others,  a  few  at  least,  that  a  Priest,  and  yet 
others  that  a  King,  would  introduce  the  new  era.^  Each 
one's  expectation  was  modified,  doubtless,  by  his  early 
education  and  by  his  personal  character.  The  anticipa- 
tion of  a  king  gained  in  prominence  after,  if  not  prompted 
by,  the  subjection  of  Judi^a  to  the  Eomans.  He  was 
expected,  of  course,  to  be  raised  up  in  the  land  of  Mono- 
theism, and  would  to  Europe  have  been  a  King  from  the 
East. 

Distinct  from  any  belief  in  a  blissful  era,  and  yet 
closely  associated  with  it  in  the  Jewish  mind,  was  a  sup- 
position that  it  would  be  introduced  by  a  subjugation 
or  thorough  destruction  of  Eome.  This  view  originated 
probably  in  B.  c.  63,  a  year  in  which  Pompey  took  Jeru- 
salem and  entered  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  in  which  Asia 
Minor  was  shaken  by  eartliquakes, —  a  proof,  many  Jews 
might  think,  of  divine  displeasure  at  Pompey's  doings. 
Fuller  details  will  be  found  in  the  chronological  part  of 
our  narrative,  untler  that  year.  At  first  we  find  merely  a 
belief  in  the  subjugation  of  Eome,  that  a  king  was  aliout 
to  be  born  for  the  Eomans ;  but  as  feelings  became  em- 
bittered, the  expectation  of  her  thorough  destruction  be- 
came prevalent.  Still  later  a  partly  miraculous  position 
was  assigned  to  the  Eoman  Emperor  as  Beliar,  or,  to  use 
a  still  later  phraseology,  as  Antichrist. 

1  See  mention  of  expected  Prophets  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  780, 
quoted  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ii.  Part  E,  and  compare  the  question 
(John  1,  21),  "  Art  thou  that  prophet  ?  "  The  expectation  of  a  Priest, 
held  of  course  by  ritualists,  will  be  found  in  the  Testaments  of  the 
Twelve  Patriarchs,  3  (Levi),  18,  quoted  in  Underworld  Mission,  p.  49  n 
(3d  edit.  p.  47  n).  The  anticipation  of  a  king  is  better  known  ;  see  it  in 
§  II.  No.  1,  of  this  chapter. 


118  JUDAISM  AT  ROME,  [CH.  VI. 

That  the  Jews  should  cherish  a  belief  in  the  downfall 
of  their  oppressor,  is  no  more  than  has  been  done  by 
other  nations.  That  they  should  impose  this  belief  on 
their  conquerors,  is  what  has  been  accomplished  by  none 
but  themselves.^ 

Before  proceeding  we  must  attend  to  two  different 
Jewish  views.  One  was  that  mankind  had  Seven  Ages 
given  them  for  repentance,  implying  apparently  a  termi- 
nation of  earthly  things  at  the  close  of  that  period ;  the 
other,  that  the  world  would  last  Ten  Ages.^  The  former 
of  these  must,  if  we  may  judge  from  events  in  B.  c.  17, 
have  been  then  applied  by  the  Jews  in  a  somewhat 
altered  form,  to  teach  that  Rome,  in  her  unrepentance, 
would  perish  seven  centuries  after  her  foundation.  The 
latter  view  was  subsequently  taught,  and  must  have 
lasted  for  a  century.  In  applying  it  to  Eome  the  Jews 
phrased  themselves  that  when  the  Tenth  Age  should 
come,  that  is,  at  its  beginning,  not  at  its  end,  Eome  should 


2  I  once  laid  aside  a  newspaper  containing  some  account  of  a  widow  in 
Hindostan  burning  herself  after  her  husband's  death.  The  narrative 
said  that  she  predicted,  AS  was  customary  on  such  occasions,  the  down- 
fall of  British  rule.  The  paper  has  been  lost,  nor  have  I  had  means  to 
verify  the  statement.  If  it  be  true,  it  implies  an  anticipation,  inter- 
woven with  religious  belief,  somewhat  analogous  to  that  of  the  Jews 
under  Roman  rule.  Such  predictions  have,  however,  found  little  credence 
among  the  English  conquerors  of  Hindostan. 

^  For  the  belief  in  seven  ages  see  Sibylline  Oracles,  2,  n-2,  quoted  in 
Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ii.  Part  F.  Compare  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  c.  15 
(13,  '.)),  "  Putting  an  end  to  all  things  I  will  make  a  beginning  of  the 
eighth  day,  that  is,  of  another  world." 

The  belief  in  ten  ages  appears  in  the  work  usually  called  Second 
Esdras,  but  which  in  the  Ethiopic  version,  here  quoted,  is  termed  the 
First  Book  of  Esdras  :  "The  world  is  distributed  into  ten  periods.  To 
the  tenth  is  it  arrived,  and  a  half  of  that  tenth  remains."  —  First  Book 
of  Esdras,  14,  9,  Laurence's  trans,  (corresponding  to  2  Esdras,  14, 
11,  com.  vers.).  In  the  Sibylline  Oracles  (8,l!i'.)--jo:))  we  are  told  that 
"  when  the  tenth  generation  sliall  V)i'  in  Hades  .  .  .  [Ood]  will  render 
the  earth  a  desert  and  there  shall  be  a  resurrection  of  the  dead."  See  a 
different  view  in  Ch.  II.  note  44. 


§  I.]      BELIEF  OF  Rome's  impending  destruction.      119 

perish,  and  in  this  shape  it  is  copied  by  at  least  one 
Komau  writer.^ 

Patricians  in  B.  c.  17  originated  a  counter-forgery  in  the 
name  of  Sibylla,  one  object  of  which  was,  by  stretching 
an  age  to  one  hundred  and  ten  years,  temporarily  to  parry 
or  weaken  the  former  of  these  views.^  Possibly  Jewish 
views  on  this  subject  circulated  in  the  guise  of  "  Etruscan 
Teaching,"  for  under  that  head  also  we  find  antagonist 
efforts  towards  elongating  an  age  and  making  it  one  hun- 
dred and  eleven  years.^ 


*  See  the  Jewish  view  in  §  ii.  No.  4,  of  this  chapter.  In  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  part  of  the  Erythrfean  Verses  a  statement  now  stands  that  when 
the  tower  of  Babel  fell,  "then  was  the  tenth  generation  of  mortals  since 
the  flood  came  upon  former  men."  —  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  108, 109.  (Compare 
11  or  9,  14.)  These  two  lines  are,  I  suspect,  an  interpolation  by  some 
later  hand.  The  established  reputation  of  the  Erythraean  document  was 
thus  used  to  support  the  idea  that  during  the  tenth  generation  a  con- 
vulsion might  be  expected.     See  also  Sibyl.  Orac.  4,  86. 

The  following  is  from  a  Heathen  :  "The  ninth  age  is  running  its 
course  and  worse  periods  than  the  times  of  iron."" — Juvenal,  Satire, 
13,  28,  29.  In  Dio  Cassius,  57,  18,  and  62,  18,  the  form  of  expression 
is  that  "when  thrice  three  hundred  years  shall  have  passed,"  that  is,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  tenth  age  or  century,  Rome  should  perish.  In 
both  passages  it  appears  as  an  utterance  of  Romans. 

5  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  vr. 

®  Censorinus,  in  his  work  Dc  Die  Natali,  c.  17,  quotes  from  Valerius 
of  Antium,  Varro,  and  Livy,  statements  and  facts  supporting  the  posi- 
tion that  an  age,  such  as  elapsed  between  age-games,  was  a  hundred 
years.  In  the  Epitome  of  Livy,  Book  49,  is  a  passage,  not  the  one 
quoted  by  Censorinus,  which  mentions  games  as  "celebrated  in  the  Cen- 
tennial year." 

Censorinus  in  the  same  work  alleges  evidence  in  support  of  the  posi- 
tion tluit  an  age  exceeded,  or  might  exceed,  one  hundred  years.  After 
distinguishing  natural  from  civic  ages,  he  tells  us  "  The  Ritual  Books  of 
the  Etruscans  appear  to  teach  the  length  of  natural  ages  in  any  particu- 
lar state.  In  these  [books]  it  is  said  to  be  written  that  the  beginning 
of  the  different  ages  can  be  thus  determined.  Among  those  born  on  the 
day  when  a  city  or  state  comes  into  existence,  the  longest  lived  finishes 
by  the  day  of  his  death  the  measure  of  the  first  age,  and  of  those  remain- 
ing in  the  state  on  that  day,  the  death  of  the  longest  lived  finishes  the 


120  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [ciI.  VI. 

§  II.     Jewish  Expectations. 

Jewish  anticipations  of  Eonie's  destruction  are  scat- 
tered through  the  Sibylhne  Oracles  and  appear  also  in 
what  is  commonly  called  the  Second  Book  of  Esdras. 
They  can  also  be  inferred  with  much  probability  from 
the  opinions  of  Jewish  and  semi-Jewish  Christians.  To 
Christians  a  distinct  section  will  be  devoted.  In  treating 
Jewish  expectations  we  shall  commence  with  those  which 
are  embodied  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles. 

For  convenience  of  reference  the  pieces  are  numbered, 
but  the  order  in  wliich  they  were  written  cannot  in  most 
cases  be  certainly  determined. 

No.  1. 

This  j)iece,  in  its  present  shape,  belongs  to  the  year 
B.  c.  29  or  30."  Whether  it  existed  with  slight  difference 
at  an  earlier  date,  is  a  question  which  at  least  deserves 
consideration.^ 

"  But  when  Rome  shall  rule  over  Egypt  also, 
Uniting  it  to  its  empire,  then  shall  the  mightiest  kingdom 

second  age.  Tluis  successively  the  duration  of  the  remaining  ages  is 
tenniuated.  The  jiortents  moreover  which  admonish  that  each  age  is 
closed  are  divinely  sent,  hecause  of  human  ignorance.  The  Etruscans, 
having  diligently  studied  these  portents  in  the  light  of  their  skill  as 
augurs,  committed  them  to  books.  So  that  in  the  Tuscan  Histories  — 
written,  as  Varro  testifies,  in  their  eighth  age  —  there  is  given  the 
number  of  ages  granted  to  that  race,  the  length  of  each  of  those  which 
were  already  pa.st  and  the  prodigies  which  marked  their  close.  It  was 
written  that  the  first  four  ages  wei'e  of  one  hundred  and  fivt!  years,  the 
fifth  of  one  hundred  twenty-three,  the  sixth  of  one  hundred  and  nine- 
teen, the  seventh  as  many,  the  eighth  was  then  in  course,  the  ninth  and 
tenth  remained,  at  the  close  of  which  there  would  be  an  end  of  the 
Etruscan  name."  —  Censorinus,  De  Die  Natali,  c.  17. 

■^  The  reduction  of  Egypt  after  the  victory  over  Antony  took  place 
according  to  Dio  Cas.sius  (51,  IT)  in  B.  c.  30  ;  according  to  Censorinus 
{De  Die  Natali,  21),  in  n.  c.  29. 

^  Josephus  {Warn,  1,  19,  •'()  mentions  an  earth(piako  while  the  forces 
of  Augustus  and  Antony  confronted  each  other  at  Artiuin. 

By  reading  "Judaea"  instead  of  "  Egypt  also,"  'louoaias  instead  of  /cai 


§  II.  2.]     BELIEF   OF   KOME'S   IMPENDING   DESTRUCTION.        121 

Of  the  Immortal  King  appear  among  men, 

And  a  Sacred  Prince  shall  come  to  hold  the  sceptre  of  the  whole  earth 

To  all  ages  of  the  time  which  approaches.  50 

Then  inexorable  anger  for  Latin  men, 

A  triumvirate  shall  destroy  Rome  by  a  miserable  fate, 

But  all  men  shall  be  destroyed  in  their  own  chambers 

When  the  fiery  cataract  shall  stream  from  heaven. 

Alas  for  wretched  me  when  that  day  shall  come,  55 

And  the  judgment  of  the  Immortal  God,  the  Great  King. 
But  at  present  go  on  building,  0  cities  ;  ornament  yourselves  all 
With  temples  and  stadiums,  market-places  and  gold  images, 
With  silver  and  stone  ones,  that  you  may  come  to  tlie  l>itter  day." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  4U-59. 

No.  2. 
The  following  piece  is  found  grouped  with  denunciatory 
prophecies  over  Gentile  cities.    There  is  no  apparent  clue 
as  to  its  date. 

"  O  self-confident  Rome  ;  —  after  the  Macedonian  phalanx 
Thou  wilt  shine  to  Olympus  ;  but  God  will  make  thee 
Totally  unheard  of.     When  thou  seemest  to  the  eye 


AiyviTTov,  we  should  have,  without  altering  the  number  of  syllables,  a 
date  in  the  year  B.  c.  63.  We  must  in  this  case,  however,  understand 
the  "Three"  who  destroy  Rome  as  an  idea  borrowed,  not  from  the  well- 
known  Triumvirates,  but  from  the  following  event  in  the  civil  war  be- 
tween Marius  and  Sylla. 

In  the  year  b.  c.  87  the  Consul  Octavius  of  Sylla's  party  drove  his 
colleague  Cinna  of  the  Marian  faction  out  of  the  city.  Cinna  collected 
additional  forces,  and,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  Sertorius,  consented  that 
Marius,  lately  returned  from  exile,  should  join  them.  According  to 
Plutarch  {Sertorius,  c.  5),  "Cinna  summoned  Marius;  and,  his  force 
being  divided  into  three  parts,  the  three  [that  is,  himself,  Marius,  and 
Sertorius]  acted  as  coinmanders."  They  marched  against  and  captured 
the  city,  whose  iidiabitants  were  slaughtered  and  maltreated  during  five 
days  and  nights  (Dio  Cass.  Vol.  1,  p.  110,  ed.  Sturz)  by  the  immediate 
followers  of  Marius,  many  of  whom  were  slaves.  At  last  Sertorius,  out- 
raged at  their  brutality  (Plutarch,  Sertorius,  c.  5),  "speared  all  of  them  to 
the  number  of  not  less  than  four  thousand,  who  had  camped  in  one  place." 

According  to  Cicero  (in  Catilinam,  3,  4,  4,  l)  and  Sallust  {Cat- 
iline, c.  47),  there  must  have  been  an  alleged  Sibylline  passage,  extant 
in  B.  c.  63,  which  mentioned  that  three  persons  would  take  possession 
of  Rome,  and,  as  the  connection  would  at  least  seem  to  imply,  with 
destructive  intent.  Compare  Ch.  VII.  note  9. 
6 


122  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  VI. 

To  sit  firmest,  then  I  will  cry  these  things  in  thine  ear :  — 
'  Destroyed,  thou  shalt  bewail  thy  brilliancy  and  niarl)le.' " 

Sibyl.  Orac.  7,  ios-112. 

No.  3. 

The  earthquake  mentioned  in  this,  points  out  B.  c.  63  ^ 
as  likely  to  have  given  occasion  for  it.  The  names  of 
the  cities  mentioned  by  Eusebius  in  his  Chronicon  and 
by  Tacitus  (Annals,  2,  47)  as  overthrown  in  A.  D.  17,  differ 
from  the  list  here  given.^*^  Tlie  doings  of  Pompey  and 
the  extortions  of  Flaccus,^^  in  B.  c.  62,  may  account  for 
the  bitterness  of  tone. 

"  Again  there  shall  occur  the  greatest  portents  among  men. 
Tlie  deep-whirling  Tanais  shall  leave  the  Ma^otic  lake, 
And  in  the  deep  stream  shall  be  the  track  of  the  fruit-bearing  fur- 
row, 
And  the  multiplied  stream  shall  cover  the  neck  [of  land].  340 

Chasms  [shall  be  formed]  and  narrow  rifts  ;  and  many  cities 
With  their  inhabitants  shall  fall  ;  in  Asia  :  lassis, 
Cebra,  Pandonia,  Colophon,  Ephesus,  Nicsea, 
Antioch,  Tanagra,  Sinope,  Smyrna,  Marosune  ; 
Of  Europe  :  Scyagra,  Clitus,  Basilis,  Meropsea,  346 

Antigone,  Magnesia,  Mycene,  Panthcea, 
Gaza,  the  all-blessed,  Hierapolis,  Astypalcea. 

Know  then,  Egypt's  destructive  race  is  near  destruction  ; 
And  then,  to  the  Alexandrines,  the  bygone  year  will  be  the  better.*^ 
Whatsoever  Rome  has  received  from  tribute-paying  Asia,  350 

Thrice  so  much  riches  shall  Asia  receive  again 
From  Rome,  and  shall  repay  deadly  insult  upon  her. 
as  many  as  from  asia  have  waited  upois'  italian  homes, 
Twenty  times  so  many  shall  be  hirelings  in  Asia, 
Italians  [who]  shall  serve  in  deepest  poverty.  356 

0  tender,  wealthy  virgin,  offspring  of  Latin  Rome," 

^  Dio  Cassius,  alhulingto  this,  says  :  "  The  greatest  earthquake  hap- 
pening of  all  that  had  ever  taken  place  destroyed  many  of  their  cities." 
—  Dio  Cass.  Vol.  1,  p.  292,  ed.  Sturz. 

^^  The  cities  mentioned  by  Eusebius  in  his  Clirmiicon  as  overthrown 
in  a.  d.  17  are  Ephesus,  Magnesia,  Sardes,  Mosthene,  Mg^,  HierociBsarea, 
Philadelphia,  Tniolus,  Teinnus,  Myrhina,  Apollonia,  Dia,  Hyrcania. 

11  See  in  the  next  chapter  under  B.  c.  62. 

^2  Year  is  used  for  time,  meaning  that  the  Alexandrines  had  seen  their 
best  days. 

13  Vii-gin,  offspring  of  Rome.  This,  in  Jewish  phraseology,  means 
inhabitants  of  Rome.     In  tlie  Old  Testament  we  find  Daughter  of  Zion, 


§  ir.  4.]      BELIEF   OF   KOME's   IMPENDING   DESTRUCTION.      123 

Often  intoxicated  by  being  much  sougbt  for  in  nuptials, 

A  servant,  —  thou  shalt  not  wed  in  the  world. 

And  often  thy  mistress  shall  shear  thy  luxuriant  hair. ^2' 

Justice,"  as  ruler,  will  cast  heaven-high  things  to  the  earth,       360 
And  again  she  gathers  from  the  earth  into  heaven. 
For  mortals  are  subjected  in  life  to  suffering  and  injustice. 
Samos  shall  be  '  Sandheap/  Delos  [tlie  visible]  shall  be  invisible,^* 
Rome  shall  be  '  Ruin,'  and  all  [heathen]  oracles  come  to  an  end."  " 

Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  337  -  364. 
No.  4. 

The  question  whether  this  extract  makes  any  hostile 
mention  of  the  Eomans  must  depend  on  the  sense  at- 
tached to  the  word  "people"  in  line  17.  The  mention 
of  the  tenth  generation  is  hardly  an  interpolation,  for  it 
stands  in  connection  with  the  subsequent  lines.  This 
renders  probable  that  the  piece  is  not  earlier  than  A.  D.  19. 
The  period  to  which  it  seems  most  apposite  is,  for  the 
first  portion,  A.  D.  64,  after  the  earthquakes  in  South  Italy 
and  the  fire  at  Rome,  and  for  the  latter  portion,  a.  d.  68, 
during  the  civil  war,  after  Nero's  death,  in  which  Galba, 
Otho,  Vitellius,  and  Vespasian  were  rivals. 

"  But  when  on  earth  are  earthquakes  and  violent  thunderbolts, 
Thunder  and  liglitning  and  a  mildewed  land, 
Rabidness  of  swift  wolves  and  human  slaughter, 
Destruction  of  mortals  and  also  of  lowing  cattle, 
Of  four-footed  herds  and  patient  asses,  10 

Of  goats  and  sheep  ;  and  thereupon  the  uncultivated  ground 
Shall  in  quantities  become  a  desert  through  neglect. 
And  fruits  shall  fail,  and  freemen  be  sold  as  slaves 

or  of  Jerusalem,  used  for  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  2  Kings,  19,  21 ; 
Daughter  of  My  People,  for  the  Jews,  Jer.  9,  1  ;  Daughter  of  Tyre,  for 
the  Tyrians,  Ps.  45,  12  ;  Daughter  of  Babylon,  for  the  Babylonians,  Ps. 
137,  8  ;  Daughter  of  the  Chaldeans,  for  the  inhabitants  of  Chaldtea,  Is. 
47,  1,  5  ;  Daughter  of  Edom,  for  the  Edomites,  Lam.  4,  li  ;  Daughter  of 
Egypt,  for  the  Egyptians,  Jer.  46,  11  ;  Daughter  of  Zidon,  for  the  Zido- 
nians,  Is.  23,  12. 

^^'  A  sample  of  annoyances  endured  by  slave-women. 

'^*  For  A  LKrjv  read  Alkt],  ^^  Delos  was  the  chief  slave-market. 

^i*  The  coiieUiiliug  words  are  sometimes  translated,  "  all  [i.  e.  Sibylline] 
ovacles  will  he  fallilled. "  The  prior  mention,  however,  of  Delos,  where 
Ay)ollo  was  sup]iosed  to  have  his  oracle,  makes  me  deem  the  above  trans- 
lation niuie  probable. 


124  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

Among  most  mortals,  and  temples  lie  robbed  :     , 

Then  after  these  things  sliall  the  Tenth  Generation  appear  la 

When  the  Sender  of  earthc^uakes  and  lightnings 

Shall  break  the  zeal  for  idols,  and  agitate  [the]  people  " 

Of  seven-hilled  Rome,  and  great  wealth  shall  perish, 

Consumed  in  a  vast  contiagratiuu  Ijy  Vulcan's  flame. 

And  thereafter  [shall  Ije]  bloody  [drops]  descending  from  heaven," 

But  the  whole  world  of  countless  men 

Having  gone  mad  shall  destroy  each  other;  and, amidst  the  confusion, 

God  shall  send  famines  and  pestilences  and  thunderbolts 

Upon  men  who  unjustly  condemn  rightful  actions. 

There  shall  be  a  failure  of  men  on  the  whole  earth,  25 

So  that  whoever  sees  a  man's  track  on  the  ground  sliall  wonder. 

Then  once  more  shall  the  Great  God  who  dwells  in  Heaven 
Be  everywhere  the  Preserver  of  practical-monotheists.^ 

"  Aaov,  pcojih.  In  Jewish  phraseology  this  is  used  ahnost  exclusively 
for  "the  Jews"  (see  Appendix,  Note  B,  §  i.  No.  13).  The  writer  may 
have  had  in  mind  a  religious  excitement  among  his  own  people  at  Rome, 
or,  contrary  to  Jewish  use,  lie  may  by  "people  "  have  meant  the  Gentile 
population  of  Rome.  If  so,  he  may  either  mean  that  God  had  startled 
them,  or  he  may  by  mentally  contrasting  the  "Senate"  with  its  com- 
mon adjunct,  the  ^^ Populus  Romanus,"  have  used  the  Greek  word  Xa6s 
as  a  translation  of  populus,  people.  In  this  case  he  referred,  not  to  a 
spasm  of  fright  among  Romans  in  general,  but  to  a  religious  excitement 
among  the  conmion  people  as  contrasted  with  the  aristocracy. 

1^  Dio  Cassius  (51,  17  ;  63,  -2(0  mentions  bloody  rain  in  the  years 
B.  c.  30  and  A.  n.  68.  Touching  the  latter,  he  says  that  in  one  locality 
even  streams  of  blood  were  the  result,  which  means  probably  that  some 
streams  of  water  were  more  or  less  discolored  by  it.  Light  may  be 
thrown  on  such  an  occurrence  by  the  following  extract :  "  The  Neapoli- 
tans were  rather  shocked  a  few  weeks  ago  to  find  their  streets  stained  with 
red  and  their  garments  spotted  with  sanguinarydooking  drops.  A  shower 
of  red  dust-specks  had  beeen  drawn  up  by  the  wind  from  African  deserts, 
and  borne  with  it  across  the  Mediterranean.  This  is  not  an  unprece- 
dented phenomenon.  A  shower  of  insects  fell  at  Araches,  in  Savoy,  last 
January,  which,  upon  examination,  proved  to  be  of  a  species  peculiar  to 
Middle  France  ;  and  a  few  years  back  Turin  was  visiteil  by  uiillinns  of 
larvffi  of  a  fly  found  nowhere  but  in  the  island  of  Sardinia."  — Harper's 
Weekly,  June  5,  1869,  p.  359. 

^^  The  absence  of  any  verb  from  the  preceding  line  renders  it  probable 
that  something  has  been  left  out  here. 

^^  On  the  meaning  of  ei'crf/3^s,  see  Appendix,  Note  B,  §  i.  5. 


§  II.  5.]      BELIEF   OF   EOME'S   IMPENDING   DESTRUCTION.       125 

And  thereafter  shall  be  deep  peace  and  [sound]  understanding, 

And  the  fruitful  earth  shall  again  bear  various  fruits,  30 

Not  being  divided  [by  hostile  factions]  nor  enslaved. 

But  every  harbor  and  roadstead  shall  be  free  to  men," 

As  it  originally  was,  and  shanielessness  shall  be  destroyed." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  2,  6  -  33. 
No.  5. 

The  year  a.  d.  70  seems  among  the  most  likely  to 
have  originated  the  present  piece.  Possibly  the  first 
two  lines  may  allude  to  one  of  the  vessels  sent  by  Ves- 
pasian to  provision  the  city.^^  It  may  have  borne  a 
purple  or  a  gilded  dragon's  head  for  its  beak,  or  have  been 
fashioned,  in  some  way,  like  a  dragon.^^     If  this  surmise 


21  The  civil  war  operated  as  a  barrier  to  commerce.  See  an  extract 
from  Tacitus,  Hist.  3,  48,  quoted  in  next  note. 

2^  Vespasian  was  in  the  East  when  he  was  proclaimed  emperor.  After 
a  victory  by  the  forces  under  one  of  his  generals,  we  are  told  that  Ves- 
pasian "proceeded  with  greater  speed  to  Alexandria,  tliat  as  Vitellius 
could  no  longer  keep  the  field,  he  might  distress  the  capital,  dependent 
as  it  was  on  foreign  supplies,  by  famine.  With  this  view  he  also  pur- 
posed by  land  and  sea  to  invade  Africa  [i.  e.  Tunis  and  the  adjacent 
country],  which  lay  on  the  same  side,  in  order  to  cause  fnmiiie  and  dissen- 
sions by  stopping  the  supplies  of  provisions."  —  Tacitus,  Hist.  3,  48, 
Bohn's  trans. 

Vitellius  perished  about  the  end  of  December,  and  there  was  therefore 
no  longer  any  need  of  starving  out  the  city  of  Rome  ;  but  we  learn  from 
Tacitus  that  "the  city  was  plunged  in  grief,  and  perplexed  with  mani- 
fold apprehensions.  .  .  .  Because  the  ships  were  detained  by  the  severity 
of  the  winter,  the  populace,  who  are  accustomed  to  buy  food  from  day  to 
day,  and  concern  themselves  about  the  price  of  provisions,  .  .  .  believed 
that  the  coast  was  barred,  and  the  transport  of  provisions  prohibited."  — 
Tacitus,  Hist.  4,  .38,  Bohn's  trans. 

Knowledge  of  this  state  of  things  must  have  been  communicated  to 
Vespasian,  for  we  again  learn  from  Tacitus  that  he  "then  committed  to 
the  still  tempestuous  sea  some  of  the  swiftest  of  his  ships,  laden  with 
corn  ;  and  well  it  was  he  did,  for  the  city  was  then  tottering  under  a 
state  of  things  so  critical  that  the  corn  in  the  granaries  was  sufficient  for 
no  more  than  ten  days'  supply,  when  the  stores  from  Vespasian  came  in 
to  their  aid."  — Tacitus,  Hist.  4,  52,  Bohn's  trans. 

"^  The  dragon  was  afterwards,  if  not  in  A.  D.  70,  a  common  military 
standard  for  each  cohort,  as  the  eagle  was  for  a  legion.      See  Smith, 


126  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  VI. 

be  correct,  the  piece  probably  belongs  to  the  early  part 
of  A.  D.  70. 

"  When  a  seemingly  flame-colored  dragon  shall  traverse  the  waters, 

Bearing  abundance  within  it,  and  shall  nourish  thy  children 

During  famine  and  civil  war,  90 

The  end  of  the  world  is  near,  and  the  last  day, 

And  to  the  called  and  proven  vindication  from  the  Immortal  God. 

But  first  there  shall  be  inexorable  anger  for  the  Romans, 

A  bloodthirsty  time  and  a  miserable  life  shall  come. 

Alas,  alas  for  you,  Italian  land,  great  and  l)arbarous  nation,         95 

You  understand  not,  that,  whence  you  came  nalced  and  unworthy 

To  the  light  of  the  sun,  to  the  same  regicni 

Shall  you  go  naked,  and  finally  shall  come  to  judgment 

As  having  judged  unjustly; 

You  alone  with  your  giuut-hands  over  the  whole  earth.  lOO 

Falling  from  your  height,  you  shall  dwell  under  the  earth. 

Through  naphtha,  asphalt,  and  sulphur,  and  much  fire 

Shall  you  be  made  to  vanish,  and  shall  be  ashes,  eternally 

Burning.     And  whoever  looks  shall  hear  lamentaljle 

Bellowing  from  the  Underworld,  and  a  great  gnashirtg  of  teeth,  los 

And  a  beating  of  your  atheist  breasts  with  your  hands. 

a 

Adorn  yourselves  with  images  of  gold  and  silver 
And  jewelled  ones,  that  you  may  come  to  the  bitter  day. 
Contemplate  your  first  punishment,  O  Rome,  and  your  howling.  125 
No  longer  under  your  slave-yoke  shall  a  neck  be  placed 
By  Syrian,  or  Greek,  or  Barbarian,  or  any  other  nation. 
You  shall  be  utterly  plundered,  and  suff'er  reprisals  for  your  deeds. 
Wailing,  you  shall  give  till  you  have  paid  back  all. 
And  be  a  subject  of  triumph  to  the  world  and  disgraced  before  all." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  ss  - 130. 

No.  6. 

These  lines  stand  at  present  in  close  sequence  on  the 
foregoing.  Uncertainty  as  to  whether  they  originally 
belonged  to  them  induces  me  to  assign  them  a  distinct 
heading. 

Did.  of  Aniiq,  p.  1044,  b.  From  the  identification  of  the  Roman  power 
with  a  flame-colored  —  or,  perhai)S,  a  gold-colored  —  dragon  by  the  author 
of  the  Apocalypse  (Rev.  12,  3),  who  wrote  at  about  this  date,  I  surmise 
that  it  was  already  an  emblem  of  Roman  authority. 

2*  The  omitted  lines  107-122  dilate  on  the  equality  of  all  in  Hades. 
They  may  either  belong  to  the  present  piece  or  to  some  other  production 
which  the  Byzantine  Harmonist  (see  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  123) 
wished  to  collate. 


§  II.  8.]      BELIEF   OF   EOME's   IMPENDING   DESTRUCTION.      127 

"  And  thenceforward  the  sixth  "*  generation  of  Latin  kings, 
Will  fill  out  [their]  allotted^  life  and  will  give  up  the  sceptres." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8, 131  - 132. 

No.  7. 

The  following  is  found  amidst  various  denunciations 
of  Gentile  cities  and  lands,  collated  perhaps  by  the 
Byzantine  Harmonist.  "What  pertains  to  Judaea  may 
have  been  written  between  A.  D.  65  and  a.  d.  70,  whilst 
the  Eoman  armies  were  in  that  country.  What  applies 
to  Eome  is  apposite  enough  to  the  same  period.  Both 
pieces  may  originally  have  constituted  different  parts  of 
one  and  the  same  effusion,  though  this  is  not  certain. 

"  Spare,  O  Father  of  all,  the  productive  region,  the  fruitful, 
Great  Judfea,  that  we  may  deliver  thy  decrees  ; 
For  thou  hast  recognized  it  by  thy  favors  as  the  chief, 
That  it  may  appear  to  all  mortals  thy  darling, 
And  may  itself  notice  how  bountiful  God  has  been  to  it. 

Italy,  thrice  wretched  thou  shalt  remain  a  total  desert,  unwept, 
A  murderous  serpent,  in  the  fruitful  earth,  to  be  thoroughly  exter- 
minated." Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  328  -  332,  342,  343. 

No.   8. 

The  following  piece  belongs  probably  to  the  time  of 
Hadrian.  The  writer,  however,  must  have  icrnored,  or 
overlooked,  the  fact  that  Egypt  became  a  Eoman  prov- 
ince after  the  time  of  Julius  Cajsar,  who,  doubtless,  was 
reckoned  as  one  of  the  fifteen  kings.^'  Under  No.  9,  the 
identification  of  Hadrian  as  the  fifteenth  king  is  obvious. 

"  As  it  is  decreed,  —  In  the  course  of  time, 
"When  thrice  five  kings  shall  have  ruled  Egypt 

25  The  sixth  king  means  Vespasian  (see  the  Jewish  or  Oriental 
method  of  counting  in  the  Appendix,  Note  E),  but  the  plural  phrase- 
ology implies  that  the  writer  mentally  associated  Titus  with  him. 

^*  The  omission  of  one  letter,  so  as  to  read  v(tt6.tov  for  vcrrdTiov,  might 
permit  the  translation,  "fill  out  extreme  life,"  that  is,  the  concluding 
term  of  mankind's  existence. 

27  If  we  adopt  the  method  of  counting  emperors  which  drops  out 
Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius  (see  Appendix,  Note  E),  the  piece  would 
belong  to  the  time  of  Commodus  ;  but  its  contents  do  not  agree  with 
such  a  date. 


128  JUDAISM  AT   EOME.  [CII.  VI. 

And  [the  time]  arrive  of  the  five-century  Phoenix, 
A  race  shall  come  that  it  may  plunder  'The  People,'^  140 

A  nation  [to  plunder]  the  unscattered  tribes  of  Hebrews.'® 
Warriors  shall  plunder  warriars.     Mars  shall  destroy  the  boasting 

Roman  threats. 
The  once  flourishing  government  of  Rome  is  destroyed, 
Of  Rome,  the  former  C|ueen  over  neighboring  cities. 
No  longer  shall  the  army  of  luxurious  Rome  be  victorious.  145 

When  the  Conqueror  from  Asia  shall  come  with  his  host, 
And  shutting  in  these  [forces  ?],  shall  enter  the  city. 
Thrice  three  hundred  and  forty-eight 
Years  shalt  thou  fulfil,  when  there  shall  come  on  thee 
Evil  fate,  overpowering  thee  and  lultilling  thy  name.*'  150 

"  Alas  for  me  miserable,  when  I  shall  see  that  day 
Of  thine,  O  Rome,  and  of  all  the  Latins. 
Jest  if  thou  wilt  at  him,  with  his  hidden  spears. 
From  Asia,  who  is  mounting  the  Trojan  chariot, 
W^hose  mind  is  furious.     But  when  he  shall  have  pierced  the  Isth- 
mus,^* 155 
Watching  around,  —  attacking  all,  —  leaving  the  sea  behind  him, — 


^  The  original  is  corrupted  ;  for  iropOrjcruv  read  -rropdriaov,  and  for  \aQiv 
read  Xa6v  or  else  the  Attic  form  Xewv.      The  Hebrew  parallelism  of  the 
passage  will  become  more  visible  by  arranging  the  Greek  in  accordance 
with  the  above  translation,  without  reference  to  metre,  thus  :  — 
"H^et  TTOpd-qaov  \a6i'  yivos, 
"AKpira  (pvXa  "Ejipaiwv  'idvo%. 

29  "  Unscattered  tribes,"  —  that  is,  the  residents  of  Palestine  who  held 
Hadrian's  armies  for  a  time  at  bay.  Or,  we  may  translate  "  uncon- 
demned  tribes,"  that  is,  the  innocent  Jews  everywhere,  who,  with  no 
wrong  proved  against  them,  were  the  subjects  of  attack. 

3"  In  Greek  the  letters  of  the  word  "Home"  would,  if  used  as  numer- 
als, add  up  948.  The  year  948  from  the  founding  of  the  city  would  be 
three  years  after  the  death  of  Commodus,  or  A.  n.  195  ;  but  since  the  city 
was,  by  popular  apprehension,  treated  as  nine  hundred  years  old  in  A.  D. 
19  and  again  in  A.  D.  64,  it  is  conceivable  enough  that  a  Sibylline  writer, 
between  A.  D.  130  and  A.  D.  150,  should  treat  it  as  nine  liundred  and 
forty-eight  years  old. 

81  An  allusion  to  ISTero,  whose  return  was  expected  to  precede  the 
Messiah's  coming.  See  §  V.  and  Appendix,  Note  F.  Nero  during  his 
lifetime  had  undertaken  to  cut  through  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth,  and  the 
writer  seems  to  assume  that  on  his  return  from  the  East  —  whither  he 
was  supposed  to  have  fled,  and  where  he  was  expected  to  reappear  —  the 
work  would  be  perfected. 


§  ir.  9.]    BELIEF   OF  KOME'S  IMPENDING  DESTKUCTION.      129 

Then  dark  blood  shall  mark  the  track  of  the  Beast. 

But  a  dog  ^^  chased  the  lion  which  throttled  the  Shepherds. 

His  sceptre  shall  be  taken  away  and  he  shall  descend  into  Hades. 

And  then  a  Holy  Prince  shall  hold  the  sceptre  of  the  whole  earth 
To  all  ages,  having  wakened  the  departed. 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  137  - 159,  169,  IVO. 

No.  9. 

This  also  was  written  under  Hadrian  :  — 

"  But  when  thou  hast  had  thrice  five  luxurious  kings  60 

Enslaving  the  world  from  the  East  to  the  West, 
[Your]  king  will  be  white-helmeted,  having  nearly^  the  name  of  a 

sea, 
[Perambulating]  with  polluted  foot  to  see  the  world,  offering  gifts, 
Ha\dng  superabundance  of  gold,  and  collecting  yet  more  silver 
From  his  enemies.     And  in  nudity  ^*  he  will  lay  bare,  65 

And  participate  in,  all  secrets  of  magic  sanctuaries. 
He  displays  a  boy  as  God.     He  will  undo  all  sacred  things, 
And  from  the  beginning  will  open  the  secrets  of  error  ^  to  all. 
Thenceforward  a  wretched  time  when  the  wretched  one^*  shall  perish, 
And  the  populace  will  say,  '  Thy  great  power,  O  city,  will  fall,'      60 
Knowing  the  evil  day  immediately  at  hand. 
And  then  they  shall  wail  together,  foreseeing  thy 
Most  wretched  fate,  both  fathers  and  young  children. 
They  shall  wail  out ,  '  Alas,  alas  ! '  by  the  sorrowful  banks  of  the 

Tiljer. 

^^  A  dog,  i.  6.  the  despised  Jewish  people,  the  lion  being  the  Eoman 
power. 

^  Or,  "having  the  name  of  a  neighboring  sea,"  that  is,  the  Adriatic. 

^*  In  the  Leyden  edition  of  Orosius,  A.  D.  1738,  on  page  489,  is  a  copy 
from  a  coin  or  medal  in  the  Pisan  collection,  medallionc  qui  inter  numis- 
tnata  Pisana  invcnitur,  which  represents  Hadrian  approaching  a  temple 
in  a  state  of  nudity,  leading  with  his  right  hand  a  lamb  and  holding  in 
his  left  a  knife,  perhaps  a  sacrificial  one.  Fire  burns  on  an  altar  near 
by.  The  inscription  cos.  ill,  meaning  third  time  Consul,  implies  that  it 
belongs  to  a.  d.  119,  some  years  prior  to  Hadrian's  initiation  into  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries.    Compare  p.  325. 

^  Error  is  here,  not  improbably,  used  in  the  sense  of  Heathenism. 

^  Hadrian  belonged  to  the  jElian  family.  The  Greek  for  this  word 
and  for  wretched  is  almost  identical.  In  Book  5  there  is  appended 
to  the  mention  of  Hadrian  three  lines  of  commendation  (48  -  50)  by  a 
Christian  hand,  which  contrast  strongly  with  the  present  and  other 
Jewish  manifestations  of  feeling  or  opinion. 

6*  I 


130  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

After  him  three  shall  reign,  occupying  the  very  last  time,       65 
Filling  out  the  name  of  the  Heavenly  God, 
Whose  power  is  now  and  shall  always  be." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  50-67. 

No.  10. 

We  will  now  turn  to  a  work  which  in  the  Apocry- 
pha of  our  English  Bibles  is  called  the  Second  Book  of 
Esdras.^"  It  is  a  Jewish  one  written  during,  or  im- 
mediately after,  the  Jewish  rebellion  under  Hadrian, 
that  is,  between  the  years  a.  d.  130  and  140.^^     The  wri- 

^'  The  Second  Book  of  Ezra,  or  Esdras,  sometimes  called  the  Fourth 
Book,  no  longer  exists  in  its  original  language,  which  was  probahly 
Hellenistical  Greek.  Three  early  translations  of  it,  however,  into  Latin, 
^Ethiopic,  and  Arabic,  are  extant,  all  of  which  have  obviously  been  made 
from  the  Greek.  These  three  have  been  re-translated  into  English.  The 
re-translation  from  the  Latin  is  that  which  is  printed  in  the  Apocrypha 
of  our  English  Bibles,  though  with  the  addition,  from  some  different 
Latin  text,  of  two  chapters  at  the  beginning  and  two  at  the  end.  The 
re-translations  from  the  Arabic  and  the  Latin  will  be  found  printed 
parallel  to  each  other  in  an  appendix  to  the  fourth  volume  of  Whiston's 
Primitive  Christianity.  The  ^thiopic  has  been  re-translated  into  Latin 
and  also  into  English  by  Laurence,  who  published  the  same  with  the 
Jilthiopic  text  in  a  volume  entitled  Primi  Ezrce  Libri  Versio  jEthiopica. 
In  the  ^thiopic  and  Arahic  versions  the  work  is  styled  the  First  Book 
of  Ezra.  In  both  these  versions  the  first  two  and  last  two  chapters  of 
what  is  published  in  our  English  Apocrypha  (chapters  1,  2,  and  15,  16) 
are  wanting,  and  the  same  chapters  were  also  found  by  Laurence  to  be 
wanting  in  twelve  oiit  of  the  thirteen  Latin  manuscripts  of  the  work 
which  he  was  able  to  discover.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  therefore,  that 
they  form  no  part  of  the  original  work.  On  the  other  hand,  both  these 
versions  contain  a  passage  of  some  length,  which,  by  accident  or  design, 
has  been  dropped  out  of  the  Latin  copies.  In  the  jEthiopic  version  it  is 
numbered  as  chapter  6,  and  belongs  in  the  Latin  copy  between  verses  35 
and  36  of  chapter  7.  For  the  evidence  of  these  two  statements  the  reader 
can  consult  in  the  work  of  Laurence  above  referred  to,  pp.  282-294, 
edition  of  1820. 

There  can  he  no  douht  that  the  work  is  Jewish.  The  name  of  Jesus, 
in  chapter  7,  2S  of  the  Latin  version,  is  an  interpolation  unsupported  by 
the  Arabic  or  iEthiopic. 

^  The  allegory  by  Esdras  concerning  the  Eagle  with  twelve  wings  in 


§  u.  10.]    BELIEF  OF  ROME's  IMPENDING  DESTRUCTION.      131 

ter's  mind  was  exercised  on  the  unhappy  condition  of 
tlie  Jewish  people,  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Gentiles. 
According  to  the  ^thiopic  version  of  his  work,  his  angel 
instructor  tells  him,  "  Behold  the  time  shall  arrive,  when 
the  signs  which  I  have  foretold  thee  shall  be  seen ;  when 
the  city  [Eome]  shall  be  concealed  which  now  appears, 
and  when  the  Land  [the  technical  Jewish  term  for  Judaea] 
shall  appear,  which  is  now  concealed,  when  every  one 
who  is  delivered  from  the  evils  predicted  shall  behold 
my  glory. 

ch.  11  is  explained  in  the  next  chapter  to  mean  twelve  emperors,  the 
second  of  whom  is,  by  his  long  reign,  clearly  enough  indicated  as  Augus- 
tus. If  we  count,  as  included  in  the  series,  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius, 
it  would  expire  with  Domitian,  at  the  close  of  the  first  century.  If  we 
omit  them  (see  Appendix,  Note  E),  it  would  expire  with  Hadrian.  Their 
omission  would  he  natural  if  the  author  were  an  Asiatic  Jew,  or  wrote 
chiefly  for  Asiatics.  The  terrible  position  of  the  Jews  under  Hadrian 
w^ould  seem  also  more  iitted  to  elicit  portions  of  the  production,  than 
their  condition  under  Domitian.  Thus  in  ch.  10,  3-2-31  (Lat.  vers. 
10,  -22)  the  writer  states  :  "  Our  priests  are  burnt  and  our  Levites  led  into 
captivity ;  .  .  .  our  virgins  are  slain  and  our  wives  suffer  violence ;  .  .  . 
our  righteous  men  are  carried  off  and  our  young  men  reduced  to  servi- 
tude." In  the  time  of  Domitian,  Judaism  was,  according  to  Juvenal, 
swelling  its  ranks  with  converts ;  and  the  comparison  which  Pliny,  Junior, 
institutes  between  its  suppers  and  those  of  Trajan  implies,  shortly  after 
Domitian's  reign,  a  respect  on  the  part  of  many  for  the  character  of  its 
entertainments.  The  book  on  which  we  are  commenting  seems  inap- 
posite to  such  a  period. 

In  what  is  regarded  as  an  addition  to  the  work  there  is  a  passage  (15, 
46-63)  indicating  Asiatic  origin,  and  another  (16,  OS -73),  hereafter  to  be 
quoted,  indicating  that  the  addition  also  was  made,  in  all  probability, 
with  reference  to  the  troubles  under  Hadrian. 

Again  :  the  description,  3,  U  (Lat.  vers.  5,  o),  and  4,  27  (Lat.  ver.  6,  2;), 
hereafter  quoted  in  Ch.  X.  note  134,  is  very  expressive  of  the  war  under 
Hadrian,  but  does  not  .seem  applicable  to  the  time  of  Domitian. 

The  following  passages  should,  however,  be  duly  considered  before 
adjudging  the  work  to  Hadrian's  time. 

In  ch.  1,  1  (Lat.  vers.  3,  l),  the  writer  .speaks  of  his  vision  as  occurring 
while  he  was  [visiting  ?]  in  Babylon  [that  is,  Rome],  in  the  thirtieth  year 
after  Jerusalem's  destruction.  The  WTiter  elsewhere  (ch.  9,  42,  43  ;  10, 
48  ;  Lat.  vers.  9,  43-45 ;  10,  45,  4C)  uses  thirty,  apparently,  as  an  indefi- 


132  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

"  For  my  Messiah  shall  be  revealed  with  those  who  are 
with  him  ;  and  cause  [during  the  millennium  ?]  them  to 
rejoice,  wlio  shall  be  raised  up.  After  which  my  child, 
my  Messiah  shall  die,^^  and  all  men  who  are  alive ;  and 
the  world  shall  be  turned  into  its  ancient  state  of  silence 
for  seven  days,  as  formerly,  so  that  no  man  shall  remain. 
But  after  seven  days  it  shall  be  awakened.  And  the  per- 
ishable world  shall  wholly  disappear ;  the  earth  shall  give 
up  the  bodies  that  are  deposited  in  it,  and  afterward  shall 
they  restore  the  souls  that  have  been  committed  to  them. 
In  that  day  shall  the  Most  High  appear  on  the  seat  of 
judgment.  His  mercy  [to  his  people  ?]  shall  come.  His 
clemency  [to  his  enemies]  shall  cease  and  his  long  suffer- 
ing have  an  end.     Judo^ment  shall  alone  remain."  *'^ 


nite  number.  If  we  understand  it  literally,  the  date  of  the  production 
would  be  the  third  year  of  Trajan,  A.  D.  100.  Trajan,  accordingly  as 
we  omit,  or  count,  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius,  was  the  eleventh,  or  the 
fourteenth  emperor,  so  that  this  supposition  seems  inadmissible. 

In  ch.  11,  23,  '24  (Lat.  vers.  11,  21),  according  to  the  /Ethiopic  and  Vul- 
gate, some  —  according  to  the  Arabic,  one— aimed  at  imperial  power, 
but  did  not  reign.  If  we  adopt  the  former  reading  and  understand  it  as 
meaning  some  of  the  twelve,  it  could  only  be  understood  of  Galba,  Otho, 
and  Vitellius,  and  would  favor  the  date  under  Domitian.  If  some  out- 
side of  the  twelve  be  meant,  it  would  favor  the  date  under  Hadrian. 
The  loss  of  the  original  Greek  leaves  to  us  merely  the  understanding,  or 
misunderstanding,  of  translators.  This  should  not  too  readily  be  taken 
against  evidence  less  likely  to  be  essentially  mistranslated. 

The  large  head  (ch.  11,  3.") ;  Lat.  vers .  11,  31),  which  eats  the  smaller 
heads,  or  wings,  or  feathers,  —  for  the  versions  vary,  — if  interpreted  of 
an  emperor  putting  out  of  his  way  heads  of  the  aristocracy,  would  be 
api)licable  to  Domitian  or  Hadrian,  but  more  readily  to  the  latter.  The 
remnant  of  Domitian's  reign  after  his  contest  with  the  aristocracy  was 
too  brief  to  have  called  forth  this  work. 

^^  This  conception  that  the  Messiah,  at  the  close  of  his  reign,  should 
die,  appears  both  in  the  iEthiopic  and  Latin  versions,  but  not  in  the 
Arabic.  It  accords  with  the  view  which  Justin  {Dialog,  c.  40,  0pp.  p. 
2(58  A)  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  Jew  Trypho,  that  the  Messiah  was 
to  be  a  human  being. 

*"  Laurence's  translation  of  Ezra  (or  2  Esdras),  ch.  5,  20-38.  Com- 
pare Lat.  vers.  ch.  7,  2f;-34. 


§11.10.]    BELIEF   OF  ROME'S   IMPENDING  DESTRUCTION.      133 

In  the  above  the  allusion  to  the  destruction  of  Rome  is 
only  found  if  we  adopt  the  Jithiopic  text. 

Another  passage,  however,  contains,  according  to  any 
of  the  three  versions  now  extant,  a  plain  affirmation  of 
Eome's  downfall  as  a  precedent  of  the  Messiah's  coming. 
Ezra  (ch.  11,  1  -  39 ;  Lat.  vers.  11,  i  -  35)  sees  an  Eagle,  ob- 
viously an  emblem  of  the  Eoman  Empire,  and  explained 
to  be  such  in  a  subsequent  chapter  of  his  work.  "  The 
Eagle  flew  with  his  wings  to  reign  over  the  earth  and 
over  them  who  dwelt  therein,  that  he  might  render 
all  things  under  heaven  subject  to  himself.  Nor  was 
there  any  who  opposed  him,  no  not  one."  Afterwards 
(11,  41 ;  Lat.  vers.  11,  37)  Ezra  hears  a  Lion's  roar  whose 
voice  resembles  a  man's.  It  is  the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  or  the  Messiah,  wdio  thus  addresses  the  Eagle : 
"Hear  thou  and  I  will  speak  to  thee.  To  thee  thus  says 
the  Most  Higli :  '  Art  not  thou  the  last  of  the  four  beasts 
whom  I  made  to  reign  over  the  world,  that  by  them  the 
ends  of  the  times  might  arrive  ?  The  fourth  wdiich  is  to 
come  to  subdue  all  the  beasts  that  were  before  him,  and 
to  oppress  the  world  and  them  with  great  trouble  and 
affliction.  Inhabiting  the  world  for  so  long  a  period,  in- 
habiting it  with  deceit,  thou  hast  not  judged  it  in  truth. 
For  thou  hast  oppressed  the  righteous  ;  injuriously  treated 
the  meek,  hated  the  upright,  and  loved  liars ;  hast  de- 
stroyed the  strongholds  of  the  righteous,  and  removed  the 
walls  of  them  who  have  not  injured  thee.  Thy  crimes 
have  ascended  to  the  Most  High,  and  thy  pride  to  the 
Almighty ;  who  has  contemplated  his  [creature]  man. 
And  behold  the  consummation  and  end  of  the  world  has 
arrived.  Therefore,  0  Eagle,  thou  shalt  surely  j^erish ; 
thy  wicked  wings,  thy  impious  heads ;  thy  malicious 
talons,  and  iniquitous  body ;  that  the  earth  may  be  at 
rest,  relieved  from  any  affliction,  being  relieved  from 
thee  ;  and  that  she  may  hope  for  the  judgment  and  mercy 
of  him  who  made  her.'  "  *^ 

In  the  following  chapter  an  angel  explains  to  Ezra  the 

"  Laurence's  translation  of  Ezra  (or  2  Esdras),  ch.  11,  42-5G  (Lat. 
vers.  ch.  11,  38  -  46). 


134  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  VI. 

meaning  of  what  he  had  seen :  "  With  respect  to  the 
Lion  which  thou  sawest  rising  up  out  of  the  field,  roaring 
and  speaking  to  the  Eagle  and  rebuking  him  for  all  his 
crimes ;  the  interpretation  of  what  thou  hast  heard  is, 
that  this  is  the  seed  of  David  whom  the  Most  High  has 
kept  to  the  latter  days.  This  is  he  who  shall  come,  and 
coming  shall  tell  them  of  their  sins  and  reprove  them 
for  their  iniquities.  He  shall  fully  display  to  them  their 
wilful  proceedings,  having  previously  placed  them  before 
his  judgment  seat  alive.  And  when  he  shall  rebuke 
them  then  shall  they  be  utterly  destroyed.  As  to  the 
remainder  of  '  The  People,'  them  will  I  redeem  in  mercy, 
those  who  have  been  saved  in  my  [first]  judgment  [at  the 
beginning  of  the  millennium]  and  he  [that  is,  the  INIes- 
siah]  shall  make  them  joyful  until  [after  the  millen- 
nium] tlie  day  of  [second]  judgment  arrives,  of  which  I 
have  spoken  to  thee  from  the  beginning."  ^^ 

Additional  extracts  containing  Jewish  expectations  of 
Eome's  destruction  will  be  given  hereafter.  One,  based 
upon  Caligula's  alleged  performances,  will  be  found  when 
we  come  to  §  v.  Others  connected  with  Nero's  return 
will  be  found  in  Note  F  of  the  Appendix. 

§  III.     Roman  Afprelunsions. 

Almost  every  nation  contains  persons  of  desponding 
dispositions,  who,  in  times  of  disaster,  fear  the  national 
downfall.  As  the  present,  however,  is  a  work  upon 
Judaism,  we  are  only  in  so  far  concerned  with  Eoman 
apprehensions  as  they  may  have  originated  with,  or  been 
stimulated  by,  Jews.  In  the  chronological  cliapters  of 
our  work,  we  shall  find  reason  to  suspect,  or  believe  in, 
such  Jewish  origin,  or  stimulus,  while  examining  the 
years  B.  c.  63,  49,  44,  17 ;  A.  d.  19,  41,  52,  64,  and  per- 
haps other  periods. 

There  are,  however,  two  passages  of  Horace  which  can, 

*2  Laurence's  translation  of  Ezra  (or  2  Esdras),  ch.  12,  30-41  (Lat. 
vers.  ch.  12,  31-34). 


§  IV.]    VIEWS  OF  JEWISH  AND  SEMI-JEWISH  CHRISTIANS.    135 

perhaps,  be  as  conveniently  considered  in  the  present  as 
in  any  other  connection.  The  first  of  these  was  written 
in  B.  c.  27,  whilst  the  Sibylline  passage  numbered  1,  in 
the  preceding  section,  was  probably  yet  in  circulation. 
The  words  of  Horace  are  found  in  an  ode  addressed  to 
Augustus :  "  Whom  of  the  gods  shall  the  people  call  to 
[aid]  the  perishing  empire  ?  With  what  prayer  shall  the 
Sacred  Virgins  weary  Vesta,  too  inattentive  to  their 
hymns  ? "  *^ 

The  other  is  from  the  sixteenth  Epode,  which  con- 
cludes by  imitating  and  burlesquing  Jewish  Sibylline 
Verses^^  This  leaves  little  doubt  that  Horace  laid  the 
popular  despondency,  in  part  at  least,  at  the  door  of  the 
Jews.  His  reference  to  Eoman  despondency  is  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  The  soil  will  again  be  occupied  by  wild  beasts.  The 
Barbaiian  cavalry,  alas,  will  stand  victorious  on  the 
ashes  and  tread  with  sounding  hoof  the  city.  .  .  .  No 
determination  is  better  than  this,  to  go ;  as  the  Phocians 
fled  .  .  .  whithersoever  our  feet  may  carry  us.  .  .  .  This 
is  my  decision.  Can  any  one  advise  better  ?  Why  do 
we  delay  our  auspicious  embarkation  ?  But  [first]  let  us 
swear  to  the  following  :  '  When  stones  float  ...  it  shall 
not  be  impious  to  return.'  "  ^^ 

In  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  vi.,  attention  will  be  called 
to  the  Centennial  Ode,  or  Age  Song,  of  Horace,  written 
for  the  celebration  in  B.  c.  17.  In  the  present  connection 
it  is  noteworthy  that  he  therein  restricts  his  promise  of 
future  dominion  for  Eome  to  the  narrow  limits  of  Italy. 

The  reader,  moreover,  will,  by  returning  to  No.  9  of  the 
preceding  section,  find  attributed  to  the  Roman  populace 
a  belief  that  destruction  hung  over  the  city. 

§  IV.     Views  of  Jewish  and  Semi-Jewish  Christians. 

Among  Christians  the  belief  of  Rome's  impending 
destruction  was  confined  apparently  to  the  Jewish  and 

*'  Horace,  Odes,  1,  2,  25  -  28. 

**  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  71. 

*^  Horace,  Ejmde  16,  lines  10  -  26. 


136  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

semi-Jewish  classes.  Of  the  former  class  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  whilst  considering  the  Apocalypse  in 
the  time  of  Vespasian.  From  the  latter  class  two  ex- 
tracts will  be  found  below ;  *^  others  will  be  given  in  the 
Appendix  under  §  iii.  of  Note  F. 

Gibbon  ignores  the  existence  of  the  foregoing  belief 
among  Jews  and  liomans.  He  treats  it  exclusively  as 
Christian,  and  apparently  as  restricted  to  no  particular 
class  of  Christians.^'' 

*s  ' '  There  is  another  and  greater  necessity  of  praying  for  .  .  .  sta- 
bility of  the  empire  ...  to  us  who  know  that  the  great  destruction 
impending  over  the  whole  world  and  therewitli  the  close  of  this  age 
threatening  dreadful  sufferings  {acerbitates)  are  retarded  by  prolongation 
commcatu  of  the  Roman  Empire."—  TertuU.  Apol.  c.  32.  Compare  c. 
39  ;  ad  Scap.  2 ;  de  Or  at.  5. 

"All  nations  will  be  in  arms,  .  .  .  of  which  havoc  and  confusion  this 
will  be  the  cause,  that  the  Roman  name  by  which  the  world  is  now  gov- 
erned (the  mind  dreads  to  say  it,  but  I  will  say  it  because  it  will  occur) 
shall  be  destroyed  from  the  earth,  and  supreme  authority  shall  return  to 
Asia.  The  East  shall  again  rule  and  the  West  be  subservient.  .  .  .  The 
Sibyls  say  openly  that  Rome  shall  perish  and  indeed  by  the  judgment 
of  God,  because  she  hated  his  name  and  being  an  enemy  to  justice  de- 
stroyed [a]  people,  the  foster-child  of  truth."  — Lactant.  Div.  Inst.  7,  1.5. 

47  "  Whilst  the  happiness  and  glory  of  a  temporal  reign  were  promised 
to  the  disciples  of  Christ,  the  most  dreadful  calamities  were  denounced 
against  an  imbelieving  world.  The  edification  of  the  new  Jerusalem 
was  to  advance  by  equal  steps  [?]  with  the  destruction  of  the  mj'^stic 
Babylon ;  and  as  long  as  the  emperors  who  reigned  before  Constantine 
persisted  in  the  profession  of  idolatry,  the  epithet  of  Babylon  was  applied 
to  the  city  and  to  the  empire  of  Rome.  A  regular  series  was  prepared 
of  all  the  moral  and  physical  evils  which  can  afflict  a  flourishing  nation ; 
intestine  discord,  and  the  invasion  of  the  fiercest  barbarians  from  the 
imknown  regions  of  the  North  [?] ;  pestilence  and  famine,  comets  and 
eclipses,  earthquakes  and  inundations.  All  these  were  only  so  many 
preparatory  and  alarming  signs  of  the  gi-eat  catastrophe  of  Rome,  when 
the  country  of  the  Scipios  and  Csesars  should  be  consumed  by  a  flame 
from  heaven,  and  the  city  of  the  seven  hills,  with  her  palaces,  her  tem- 
ples, and  lier  triumphal  arches,  should  be  buried  in  a  vast  lake  of  fire 

and  brimstone The  Christian  who  founded  his  belief  much  less 

on  the  fallacious  argiiments  of  reason  than  on  the  authority  of  tradition 
and  the  interpretation  of  scripture  ....  considered  every  disaster  that 


§v.]  THE  EOMAN   EMPEROK   AS   BELIAE.  137 

§  V,     Tlie  Boman  Emperor  as  Beliar.      Origin  of  the 
Conception  called  Antichrist. 

At  some  date  between  the  death  of  Caligula  in  A.  d.  41, 
and  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  by  Claudius  in  A.  d.  52,  an 
idea  was  added  to  the  belief  of  Home's  destruction,  namely, 
that  its  then  reigning  emperor,  Claudius,  should,  as  the 
head  of  Heathenism,  set  himself  up  against  the  Deity 
and  be  destroyed,  and  that  his  destruction  should  precede 
the  new  era.  To  the  emperor,  in  this  partly  supernatural 
capacity,  the  title  of  Beliar^^  was  appropriated.  Nero,  at 
a  later  date,  superseded  all  recollection  of  Claudius  as  the 
expected  individual,  and,  in  place  of  the  term  Beliar, 
that  of  Antichrist  *^  came  into  use,  probably  because  of 
anticipated  conflict  between  him  and  the  expected,  or  re- 
expected,  Christ. 

The  circumstances  which  gave  rise  to  this  conception 
were  as  follows.  The  Jewish  aristocracy  at  Alexandria 
had,  during  a  violent  illness  of  Caligula,  made  themselves 
the   tools   of  patrician  leaders  at  Eonie  in  a  rebellion 

happened  to  the  empire  as  an  infallible  symptom  of  an  expiring  world." 
—  Gibbon,  Rome,  ch.  15.  "Second  Cause";  Vol.  2,  pp.  84,  85;  edit, 
of  1S16,  Philada. 

*^  A  son  of  Belial  means  a  child  of  wickedness,  or  of  Heathenism ;  for 
in  the  Jewish  mind  the  two  ideas  wei-e  associated.  In  the  following 
passage  of  Paul :  "What  participation  is  there  between  righteousness 
and  L.\w-lessness;  .  .  .  what  harmony  has  Christ  with  Beliar."  — 2  Cor. 
6,  U-ri.  Beliar  (common  version,  Belial)  seems  used  for  the  impersona- 
tion of  heathenism.  Compare  in  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  4,  -2  (rpioted  in  Ap- 
pendix, Note  F,  §  III.)  the  term  Berial. 

*9  The  epistles  of  John,  written  probably  between  A.  D.  64  and  A.  D.  80, 
though  they  use  the  term  Antichrist  in  a  metaphorical  sense  for  any,  or 
many,  opponents,  yet  assume  in  their  readers  a  prior  knowledge  of  Anti- 
christ as  of  an  individual  personage.  "  It  is  the  last  hour,  and  as  ye  have 
heard  that  [in  the  last  hour]  Antichrist  is  to  come,  already  many  anti- 
christs have  come  into  existence,  whence  we  recognize  that  it  is  the  last 
hour."  — 1  John  2,  18.  "  Many  deceivers  have  appeared  [literally,  have 
come  into  the  world]  who  do  not  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  has  corporally 
[that  is,  actually]  come.  Such  a  one  is  'The  Deceiver,'  and  'The  Anti- 
christ.' "  —  2  John,  verse  7.     Compare  1  John  2,  22 ;  4,  3. 


138  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

against  him.  This  must  have  disgusted  the  Jewish  com- 
monalty who  knew  patricianism  as  their  most  unscrupu- 
lous opponent.  The  accession  to  power  of  this  patrician 
element  under  Claudius  may  have  restored  political  au- 
thority to  its  Jewish  allies,  but  could  not  free  them  from 
popular  odium.  To  mitigate,  or  parry,  this  odium  they 
invented  and  circulated  the  most  extravagant  stories  of 
self-deification  by  Caligula,  and  of  his  having  intended 
placing  his  statue  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  The  re- 
sult renders  probable  that  they  endeavored  to  obtain 
credence  by  representing  the  head  of  the  Eoman  Empire 
as  by  his  position  the  enemy  of  God.  During  their 
efforts  measures  were  in  progress  at  Eome  for  limiting 
Judaism  and  re-establishing  worship  of  the  Pagan  deities. 
"When  these  measures  culminated  by  expulsion  of  the 
Jews,  we  can  discern  among  the  latter  a  belief  which  had 
been  developed,  that  Claudius,  as  special  enemy  of  the 
Deity,  was  to  be  destroyed,  and  that  thereupon  the  new 
era  would  be  introduced. 

The  following  production,  by  its  allusion  to  Agrippina, 
bears  evidence  that  it  was  written  between  A.  D.  49  and 
A.  D.  54.  We  shall  find  in  the  chronological  part  of  our 
narrative  abundant  reason  for  placing  it  about  A.  D.  52. 
The  opening  lines  are  based  upon  actions  of  Caligula, 
though  stated  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  tliem  a  partly 
miraculous  appearance.  Possibly  some  Jews  may  have 
credited  already  the  misrepresentations  which  both  the 
Jewish  and  lioman  aristocracy  circulated  concerning  that 
emperor,  but  it  is  more  probable  that  such  credence 
originated  at  a  later  date. 

"  From  THE  RACE  OF  CiESARS  ^  at  last  shall  Beliar  come 
And  shall  create  ^^  high  mountains  and  still  the  sea,*^ 

^  More  literally,  but  less  expressively,  "  from  the  Augusti." 
^1  There  is  but  one  and  the  same  word  in  the  original,  dT-fiaei,  for  the 
three  tran.slations,  "create,"  "still,"  and,  more  doubtfully,  "place."  In 
the  last  instance  it  may  moan  "quiet  the  dead,"  and  may  refer  to  the 
attention  manifested  by  Caligula,  promptly  after  his  accession  (Sueton. 
Calig.  15)  towards  the  ashes  of  his  mother  and  brother. 
^^  By  Caligula  "  moles  were  thrown  into  a  deep  and  rough  sea,  and 


§  v.]  THE  ROMAN  EMPEROR  AS  BELIAR.  139 

Shall  create  a  big  flaming  sun,  and  brilliant  moon,**  65 

And  place  [I]  the  dead,  and  do  many  wonders 

Before  men,  yet  permanent  things  shall  not  be  in  him, 

But  deceitful  ones,  and  he  shall  mislead  many  mortals, 

Both  faithful  and  chosen  Hebrews  and  others  LAW-less 

Men,  who  have  never  yet  hearkened  to  the  word  of  God,        70 

But  when  the  threats  of  the  great  God  shall  draw  near, 

And  flaming  power  jjour  in  a  flood  upon  the  earth, 

It  shall  burn  Beliar,  and  the  proud  men 

All,  as  many  as  have  put  their  trust  in  him. 

At  that  time,  by  the  wiles  of  a  wife  shall  the  world  75 

Be  governed,  and  obey  her  in  all  things,** 

rocks  of  the  hardest  flint  were  cut  away  and  fields  raised  to  moun  tains  by 
filling,  and  niouutain-tops  levelled  by  digging,  and,  indeed,  with  incredi- 
ble celerity,  since  delay  was  capitally  iiuuished."  — Sueton.  Calig.  37. 
The  concluding  remark  is  no  doubt  false.  What  precedes  it  is  at  least 
extravagant  exaggeration.  According  to  the  same  writer  in  c.  19,  and  to 
Dio  Cassius,  59,  17,  he  made  a  bridge  of  boats,  or  vessels,  two  or  three  (?) 
miles  long,  across  the  Bay  of  Baiae,  —  an  indentation  on  the  north  side 
of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  —  and  rode  across  it  on  horseback  and  in  a  chariot. 
The  placidity  of  the  sea  while  the  bridge  was  being  fastened  together 
prompted  him  to  remark  (Dio  Cass.  59,  17)  that  Neptune  was  afraid 
OF  niM. 

^  After  Caligula  crossed  the  bridge  with  his  companions  "they  feasted 
during  the  remainder  of  the  day  and  the  whole  night  with  much  [arti- 
ficial] light  in  the  spot  itself,  and  much  illuminating  them  from  the 
mountains,  for  the  locality  being  moon-shaped  [a  semicircle  of  hills 
around  a  semicircular  bay],  fire  was  visible  on  all  sides,  as  in  a  theatre,  so 
that  there  was  no  perceptible  darkness  ;  for  he  wished  to  turn  night  into 
day  as  elsewhere  sea  into  land."  —  Dio  Cassius,  59,  17.  Some  of  the 
feasters  may  have  likened  the  illumination  to  the  moon.  Others  may 
have  alleged  that  it  surpassed  the  moon  and  equalled  the  creation  of  sun- 
light. 

^*  "  From  this  moment  [when  Claudius  married  Agrippina]  the  city 
assumed  a  different  character,  and  a  woman  had  the  control  of  every- 
thing. .  .  .  The  despotism  exercised  was  as  strict  as  though  it  were  under 
the  direction  of  a  man  ;  in  her  public  conduct  she  was  grave  and  rigid, 
frequently  haughty  and  overbearing  ;  .  .  .  while  an  insatiable  thirst  for 
money  was  veiled  under  the  pretext  of  its  uses  in  maintaining  the  im- 
perial authority.  .  .  .  [After  Caractacus  was  brought  prisoner  to  Rome] 
the  people  were  summoned  to  see  him  as  a  rare  spectacle,  and  the  prae- 
torian bands  stood  under  arms  in  the  field  before  the  camp.  Then  first 
the  servants  and  followers  of  the  British  king  moved  in  procession,  .  .  . 


140  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VI. 

But  when  she  shall  he  a  widowed  ruler  over  the  whole  earth, 
And  shall  cast  her  gold  and  silver  into  the  great  sea 
And  the  brass  and  iron  [ornaments  I]  of  short-lived  mortals 
Into  the  deep,  then  shall  all  the  elements  80 

Of  the  world  he  widowed,^*  when  God  who  dwells  in  Ether 
Shall  roll  up  the  heaven  as  a  book  is  rolled  up^ 
And  the  whole  diversified  heaven  shall  fall  on  the  earth  and  sea 
And  an  iuL'xhaustilile  cataract  of  raging  liame  shall  pour  out, 
Which  shall  burn  the  earth  and  burn  the  sea  85 

And  melt  the  heaveidy  revolution,  and  days  [consequent  thereon] 
And  creation's  self  into  one  mass  and  lefine  it  to  purity. 
No  longer  shall  there  be  spheres  of  rejoicing  luminaries 
Nor  night  nor  morning,  nor  multiplied  days  of  care, 
Nor  spring,  nor  summer,  nor  winter,  nor  autumn,  90 

Then  shall  the  judgment  of  the  Great  God  be  manifested, 
[The  judgment]  of  that  great  age  when  all  these  things  are  to  take 
place."*' 

In  Ch.  VIII.  I  V.  will  be  found  a  fuller  account  of  events 
in  A.  D.  52  -  54,  which  accompanied,  or  contributed  to,  the 
first  public  manifestation  of  belief  in  this  conception. 
Its  connection  with  Nero  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix, 
Note  F,  §§  II.  III.,  in  the  former  of  which  a  quotation  from 
Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  34,  should  be  noted.  The  conception  of 
Antichrist  has  lasted  to  the  present  day.^^ 
• 

and  last  himself,  attracting  the  gaze  of  all.  .  .  .  The  prisoners,  released 
from  their  chains,  did  homage  to  Agrippina  also,  who,  at  a  short  distance, 
occupied  another  throne,  in  full  view  of  the  assembly,  with  the  same  ex- 
pressions of  praise  and  gratitude  as  they  had  employed  to  the  emperor. 
A  spectacle  this,  strange  and  unauthorized  by  the  customs  of  our  ances- 
tors, for  a  woman  to  preside  over  the  Roman  ensigns.  .  .  .  Agrippina 
also  began  to  assert  her  preeminence  more  studiously,  and  even  to  enter 
the  Capitol  in  a  chariot,  a  distinction  ...  of  old  allowed  to  none  but 
the  priests  and  things  sacred.  .  .  ."  —  Tacitus,  An.  12,  7,  30,  37,  42, 
Bohn's  trans. 

*^  The  same  word  which  means  widowed  means  also  desolated,  or  laid 
M'aste. 

6*^  Books  anciently  were  in  the  form  of  a  scroll,  opened  by  unrolling 
and  clospd  by  rolling  up. 

"  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  (;3-92. 

58  "Some  have  maintained  the  opinion  that  Anti-christ  will  be  Satan 
incarnate,  but  the  more  recent  theologians  reject  this  opinion  as  absurd, 
and  hold  that  he  will  merely  be  under  a  high  degree  of  diabolic  influence. 


§  I.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  B.  C.  76.  141 

CHAPTEE  VII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  76 -A.  D.  19. 

In  the  second  century  before  the  Christian  era,  Greeks 
influenced  by  Judaism  must,  and  Jews  may,  have  existed 
at  Eome,  but  any  evidence  of  a  direct  influence  by  the 
latter  on  Eomans  is  uncertain.^  Our  earliest  reliable  evi- 
dence of  such  influence  is  during  the  year  B.  c.  76,  at 
which  date  the  following  narrative  begins. 

There  are  three  epochs  in  the  chronology  of  our  subject 
which  will  each  demand  a  chapter.  During  tlie  first  of 
these,  B.  c.  76  to  a.  d.  19,  no  law  forbade  conversions  to 
Judaism.  The  second  period  extends  from  A.  D.  19,  when 
fearful  penalties  were  enacted  against  such  conversions, 
to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  A.  u.  70.  The  third 
epoch  extends  from  this  latter  date  to  the  close  of  the 
war  under  Hadrian,  which  isolated  the  Jews  of  Europe 
and  ended,  apparently,  their  direct  influence  on  heathens. 
Some  subsequent  events  will  appear  in  Ch.  Xll. 

§  I.    B.  C.  76.    The  Erythrccan  Verses  cause  Discussion  of 
Monotheism. 

The  managers  of  the  senatorial  faction  had,  since  B.  c. 
461,  created  and  nourished  a  superstitious  reverence  at 
Eome  for  books,  which  they  kept  secreted  in  their  own 
charge,  and  which  subsequently  to  B.  c.  76,  if  not  previ- 
ously, were   attributed   to   a   real  or  imaginary  woman 

The  period  of  the  sway  of  Antichrist,  it  is  supposed,  will  continiie  for 
three  and  one  half  years  from  the  time  when  his  power  has  reached  its 
acme,  after  which  he  will  be  destroyed  by  an  extraordinary  interposition 
of  the  Almighty,  a  short  time  before  the  end  of  the  world."  —  Ne'w 
Am.  Cyclopeedia,  Vol.  1,  p.  654,  col.  1. 

1  See  action  by  the  Praetor  for  Foreigners  in  B.  c.  139  against  worship- 
pers of  Sabazian  Jove  (Jupiter  Sabaoth?)  mentioned  in  Ch.  VIII.  note  27. 


142  JUDAISM  AT   HOME.  [CH.  VII. 

named  Sibylla.  These  -wTitings  had  perished  in  b.  c.  83, 
in  the  burning  Capitol.  A  Jew  or  monotheist  at  the 
present  date  took  advantage  of  reverence  for  them  and 
turned  the  tables  on  the  patricians.  He  induced  the 
Senate  to  bring  from  Erythrse  in  Asia  Minor  leaves  in 
Greek  verse,  alleged  to  be  of  the  same  authorship,  wliich 
were  deposited  in  the  senatorial  arcliives.  These  leaves 
formed  a  connected  composition  which  in  unmistakable 
terms  taught  monotheism  and  other  Jewish  views.^  The 
recognition  of  this  work  by  the  Senate  as  on  the  same 
footing  with  the  former,  from  which  no  appeal  was  per- 
missible, could  not  but  prompt  questions  concerning  the 
divine  nature.  An  evidence  of  its  doing  so  is  that  Cicero, 
writing  thirty  years  afterwards  "  On  the  Nature  of  the 
Gods"  selects  disputants  who  could  only  have  met  in  this, 
or  in  part  of  the  preceding,  year.^  Either  he  deemed  the 
year  appropriate,  or,  more  probably,  he  but  filled  out  a 
conversation  which  had  really  taken  place. 

The  Senate  must  have  acted  with  little  or  no  scrutiny 
of  this  document, — written  in  a  foreign  language, — which 
subsequently  proved  so  sore  a  thorn  in  their  sides.  Sixty 
years  later  stringent  measures  were  taken  to  prevent  its 
perusal. 

2  See  account  of  this  document  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  li. 

2  Cotta,  one  of  the  speakers,  died  in  B.  c.  74  or  73.  He  and  Cicero 
were  never  conjointly  in  the  city  after  B.  c.  76.  Previously  to  this  year 
Cicero  had  been  in  Greece  and  Asia,  whither  he  went  after  his  first  en- 
trance as  a  young  man  upon  public  life,  and  whence  he  did  not  return 
until  some  time  in  B.  c.  77.  Ramsay,  in  Smith's  Did.  of  Biog.  Vol.  1, 
p.  738,  col.  2,  regards  the  De  Natura  Dcorwin  as  published  in  B.  c.  44, 
and  the  implied  date  of  the  conversation  as  "somewhere  about  the  year 
B.  c.  76."  On  the  same  page,  the  same  writer  says  :  "  In  no  production 
do  we  more  admire  the  vigorous  understanding  and  varied  learning  of  our 
author."  Possibly  the  collision  of  Jewish  with  heathen  views  had  caused 
thorough  debate  on  the  subject  in  the  Roman  community.  Among  dif- 
ficulties which  the  Jews  must  have  encountered  was,  that  men,  who  had 
never  thought  of  life  save  in  connection  with  a  physical  body,  could  not 
readily  comprehend  an  incorporeal  God.  One  of  Cicero's  speakers  alleges 
{De  Nat.  Deor.  1,  1-2,  al.  .30)  that  such  a  God  "must  necessarily  be  desti- 
tute of  perception,  sagacity,  pleasure." 


§n.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,  B.  C.  75-63.  143 


§  n.     B.  C.  75  -  63.     Other  Sibylline  Verses.     King  from 
the  East. 

The  reception  of  the  above  verses  showed  that  Jewish 
teachings  in  the  name  of  Sibylla  would  command  a  re- 
spectful hearing,  or  a  superstitious  reverence,  from  the 
Eomans.  Consequently  other  Jews  committed  their 
teachings  to  verse  and  ascribed  them  to  the  same  au- 
thoress. Among  these  teachings  is  one  of  uncertain  date 
which  the  reader  will  find  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot- 
note 96.  I  suspect  it  to  have  been  written  during,  or 
prior  to,  the  year  b.  c.  63.  If  so,  it  will  aid  in  explaining 
the  heathen  allusions,  which  we  shall  shortly  meet,  to  an 
expected  "  King  for  the  Eomans "  and  "  King  from  the 
East."  The  reader  should  also  in  this  connection  re- 
examine, under  §  ii.  of  the  preceding  chapter,  the  piece 
numbered  1,  which  may  with  slight  variation  have  existed 
as  early  as  B.  c.  63.  Both  these  pieces  differ  from  the 
Erythraean  verses,  by  substituting  a  King  for  the  Prophets 
of  God. 

In  the  year  b.  c.  63,  Pompey  laid  siege,  during  three 
months,  to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and,  after  its  capture, 
horrified  its  votaries  by  entering  the  Holy  of  Holies.  This 
last  procedure  took  place  in  the  third  month,  which,  as  the 
Jewish  year  began  near  the  equinox,  means  probably  in 
June,  or  early  in  July.^  A  tribute,  which  he  imposed, 
did  not  diminish  Jewish  indignation.  During  this  siege, 
or  directly  after  its  close,  a  fearful  earthquake  shook  all 
Asia  Minor ,^  and  was  felt  even  at  Eome.^    The  Jews  were 

*  Josephus,  Antiq.  14,  4,  3. 

s  See  Ch.  VL  note  9.  This  earthquake  took  place  not  long  before  the 
death  of  Mithridates,  whose  demise,  according  to  Plutarch  {Pompey, 
c.  41),  was  announced  by  special  messenger  to  Pompey  while  on  an  ex- 
pedition into  Arabia  Petraea.  Judaea  had,  according  to  the  same  writer 
{Povipcy,  c.  39),  been  already  subdued  and  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
a  Roman  province.  This  order  of  events  seems  more  reliable  than  that 
of  Dio  Cassius  who  makes  the  Arabian  expedition  precede  that  into 
Judaea. 

^  Cicero,  De  Divinatioiie,  1,  (11),  18. 


144  JUDAISM  AT   EOME.  [CH.  VII. 

not  unlikely  to  interpret  it  as  a  sign  ©f  God's  displeasure 
at  the  insult  to  his  temple."     A  Messianic  excitement 

■^  A  Sibylline  piece  is  still  extant,  which  seems  to  have  been  prompted 
by  the  above  events.  It  stands  in  immediate  sequence  upon  the  piece 
(3,  652-662,  quoted  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  96)  concerning  a 
King  from  the  East.  "Whether  the  two  constituted  originally  but  one 
piece,  or  whether  the  following  lines  were  afterwards  subjoined,  may  be 
a  question. 

"  But  again  the  Gentile  kings  against  this  Land 
Shall  rush  in  force,  bringing  calamity  on  themselves. 
For  the  temple  of  the  Great  God  and  most  eunuent  men 
Shall  they  wish  to  seize.     When  they  enter  the  Laud 
The  polluted  kings  sliall  sacrifice  around  the  city. 
Having  each  his  throne  and  a  disobedient  People. 

The  all-producing  earth  shall  be  shaken  in  those  days 

By  the  Immortal  hand,  and  the  fish  in  the  deep 

And  all  the  wild  beasts  of  the  earth  and  countless  tribes  of  birds 

And  all  souls  of  men  and  the  whole  sea 

Shall  shudder  under  the  Immortal  look,  and  fright  shall  exist. 

All  the  well-made  walls  of  evil-minded  men 

Shall  fall  to  the  ground,  because  they  recognized  not  the  Law 

Nor  the  Judgment  of  the  Great  God.     But  with  senseless  mind 

Rushing,  ye  all  raised  spears  against  the  temple. 

And  God  shall  judge  all  by  war  and  the  sword, 

By  fire  and  flooding  rain.     There  shall  be 

Sulphur  from  heaven,  stones  and  hail. 

Frequent  and  destructive,  and  quadrujieds  shall  perish. 

And  then  they  shall  recognize  the  Imperishable  God,  whose  judgments  these 

are. 
Lamentation  and  battle-cry  over  earth's  expanse 
Shall  come  from  perishing  men.    They  shall  lie  speechless, 
Bathed  in  blood.     Earth  shall  drink 
The  blood  of  the  perishing  :  wild  beasts  be  satiated  with  their  flesh. 

The  Great  Eternal  God  himself  told  me 
To  prophesy  these  things.     They  shall  not  be  mifinished 
Nor  unfulfilled ;  since  IT  alone  placed  tliem  in  my  mind. 
The  Spirit  of  God  [whichj  is  without  deception  in  the  world." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  3,003-701. 

In  the  foregoing  the  term  "kings"  seems  to  mean  leaders  or  geneivals. 
The  disobedient  people  may  mean  those  Jews  who  had  called  in  the  Ro- 
mans. The  allusion  to  war  would  favor  the  supposition  that  it  was 
written  during  the  siege  of  the  temple,  whilst  Mithridates,  the  dreaded 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  75-63.  145 

among  them  would,  under  the  circumstances,  be  natural. 
The  liomans,  moreover,  were  in  the  midst  of  alarm  from 
Catiline's  conspiracy  and  from  events  which  Cicero  has 
deemed  worthy  of  record  as  supposed  portents.^  They 
M'ere  not  likely  therefore  to  be  less  susceptible  than  usual 
to  the  infection  of  any  such  excitement. 

During,  or  immediately  after,  the  above-mentioned 
Eastern  events  a  report  became  current  at  Kome  of 
which  we  have  two  versions ;  one,  that  a  king  was  about  ■ 
to  be  born  for  the  Eoman  people,  another,  that  he  was  to 
be  born  for  the  whole  world.  It  must  have  attracted 
much  attention,  since  in  the  midst  of  Catiline's  conspiracy 
it  occasioned  talk  in  the  Senate.  That  body,  being  ap- 
parently in  a  jocose  mood,  passed  a  decree  that  no  one 
born  that  year  should  be  brought  up.  The  decree  was 
not  registered,  being  regarded  doubtless  as  a  mere  piece 
of  Senatorial  merriment.  Marathus,  however,  a  freedman 
of  Augustus,  whose  account  is  copied  by  Suetonius,^  treats 
it  as  sober  earnest.  It  must  have  been  passed  in  the  latter 
part  of  August  or  the  beginning  of  September,  for  on  the 
23d  of  the  latter  month  it  was  still  fresh  enough  to  be  the 
occasion  of  an  additional  witticism.     On  that  day  Augus- 

opponent  of  the  Romans,  was  yet  in  arms.  This  date  is  further  favored 
hy  the  absence  of  any  allusion  to  Pompey's  entering  the  Holy  of  Holies. 
The  lines  (702  sqq.)  which  follow  the  above  extract  might,  at  first  sight, 
appear  to  be  connected  with  them,  but  a  close  inspection  will  probably 
lead  to  an  opposite  conclusion.  See  part  of  them  quoted  in  Note  A  of 
the  Appendix,  in  the  text  prefixed  to  foot-note  70. 

*  Cicero  committed  to  verse  his  mention  of  comets,  a  total  eclipse  of 
the  moon  in  a  starry  night,  a  citizen  killed  by  lightning  when  the  sky 
was  clear,  an  earthquake,  and  some  other  supposed  prodigies.  See  De 
Divinationc,  1,  (11),  is. 

^  "Julius  Marathus  is  authority  [for  the  statement]  that,  a  few 
months  before  Augustus  was  bom,  there  occurred  at  Rome  a  public 
prodigy,  by  which  notice  was  given  that  Nature  was  in  labor  with  a  king 
for  the  Roman  people  ;  and  that  the  frightened  Senate  enacted  that  no 
one  born  that  year  should  be  brought  up  ;  but  that  those  amongst  them, 
whose  wives  were  pregnant,  hoping  each  that  it  pertained  to  him,  took 
care  that  the  decree  of  the  Senate  should  not  be  registered  in  the  tveaiS- 
viYy."  —  Suetomns,  Augustus,  c.  94. 

3 


146  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  VII. 

tus  was  bom,  and  the  Senate  was  engaged  with  business 
touching  the  Catiline  conspiracy.  The  fatlier  of  Augustus 
was  delayed  at  home  by  the  advent  of  his  son.  When 
the  cause  of  the  delay  became  known,  Nigidius,^^  one  of 
the  Senators,  remarked,  humorously  no  doubt,  that  a  lord 
was  born  to  the  whole  earth.^^  The  fatlier  of  Augustus, 
if  we  may  take  tlie  statement  of  Dio  Cassius,^^  without 
his  inferences,  must  have  joined  in  the  jest  by  suggesting 
the  propriety  of  killing  his  new-born  son,  from  which  his 
friend,  in  like  spirit  it  would  seem,  restrained  him. 

The  only  natural  explanation  of  tlie  prevalent  belief 
in  a  cominu:  king  for  the  liomans  and  for  the  whole  world 


1°  P.  Nigidius  Figulus  was  "a  P3'thagorean  philosopher,  ...  so 
celebrated  on  account  of  his  knowledge,  that  Gellius  does  not  hesitate  to 
pronounce  him,  next  to  Varro,  the  most  learned  of  the  Romans.  Math- 
ematical and  physical  investigations  appear  to  have  occupied  a  large  share 
of  his  attention.  .  .  .  He  .  .  .  took  an  active  part  in  the  civil  war 
on  the  side  of  Pompe}' ;  was  compelled  in  consequence  by  CiEsar  to  live 
abroad,  and  died  in  exile  b.  c.  44."  —  Smith,  Diet,  of  Biog.  Art.  Figu- 
lus. 

^^  "On  the  day  when  Augustus  was  born,  the  fact  that  the  Senate  was 
occupied  upon  Catiline's  conspiracy,  and  that  Octavius  came  late,  in  con- 
sequence of  his  wife's  confinement,  gave  notoriety  to  the  event,  that 
Publius  Nigidius,  hearing  the  occasion  of  his  delay,  and  the  hour  of  his 
wife's  delivery,  declared  that  a  lord  was  born  for  the  world."- — Sueto- 
nius, Augustus,  c.  94. 

12  <i  When  the  boy  [Augustus]  was  born,  Nigidius  Figulus,  a  Senator, 
immediately  predicted  for  him  the  sole  monarchy.  This  [man]  excelled 
those  of  his  own  time  in  his  laying  off  the  Heavens,  and  knew  thoroughly 
the  value  of  the  stars,  what  their  import  was  singly,  and  what  when 
mingling  with  each  other  in  clusters,  or  when  opposed  to  each  other  by 
given  intervals ;  and  on  this  account  he  has  been  charged  with  the  cul- 
tivation of  forbidden  arts.  This  man  asked  Octavius,  when  he  met  him 
coming  late  to  the  assembly,  on  account  of  the  birth  of  his  son, — for 
there  happened  to  be  a  meeting  of  the  Senate  that  day,  —  why  he  had 
delayed  ;  and,  learning  the  cause,  cried  out,  '  You  have  begotten  a  lord 
for  us,'  and  then  restrained  him  [Octavius], —  who  was  troubled  at  this 
and  wished  to  destroy  his  child,  —  by  saying  that  it  was  impossible  that 
such  a  child  should  suffer  any  such  thing.  These  things  were  spoken  of 
at  that  time."  —  Dio  Cass.  45,  l.  Vol.  2,  p.  286  (Reim.  pp.  419,  420). 


§ni.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  62-50.  147 

is  the  supposition  that  it  originated  in  a  Messianic  excite- 
ment among  the  Jews.  There  is  no  heathen  source  to 
which  we  can  with  phiusibility  attribute  it.  The  prophets 
of  evil,  mentioned  by  Cicero,^'^  may  either  have  been  ex- 
cited Jews  or  heathens. 

§  III.     B.  C.  62  -  50.     Confiid  of  Parties  and  Religious 
Ideas.     Cicero  a  Reactionist. 

The  aristocracy,  after  their  victory  over  Catiline,  which, 
in  some  points,  was  a  victory  also  over  the  common  peo- 
ple, undertook  to  reward  their  partisans.  Flaccus,  one  of 
their  active  assistants,  was  appointed,  for  the  year  b.  c. 
62,  to  the  province  of  Asia.^*  Here  he  succeeded  in  tilling 
his  own  pockets  —  and  probably  those  of  a  good  many 
satellites  —  at  the  expense  of  the  unfortunate  inhabitants. 
One  of  his  proceedings  was  to  seize,  as  already  mentioned, ^^ 
all  the  gifts  intended  for  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  Cicero, 
in  the  year  b.  c.  59,  defended  him  by  saying  that  this  gold 
was  duly  weighed  and  paid  into  the  treasury,^^  meaning 
apparently  the  provincial  one.  This  defence  implied  that 
if  the  gold  were  to  be  repaid,  it  should  be  at  expense 
of  the  provincial  treasury.  He  forgot  to  add  that  Flaccus, 
by  the  pretence  of  fitting  out  a  fleet  and  by  other  expe- 
dients, had  known  how  to  transfer  the  money  again  from 
the  treasury  to  his  own  pockets,  or  tliose  of  his  favorites. 

A  brother  of  Cicero,  named  Quintus,  was  the  successor 
of  Flaccus  and  retained  the  position  for  three  consecutive 
years,  B.C.  61-59.  He  Avas  a  Stoic,  not  afraid  to  advo- 
cate some  Jewish  views,''  and  was  much  more  accepta- 
ble to  the  provincials'^  than  to  the  aristocracy  at  home, 

13  "Prophets,  with  inspired  breast,  poured  forth  through  the  land 
many  predictions  which  threatened  grievous  misfortunes."  —  Cicero,  Be 
Divinat.  1,  (11),  IS. 

^*  Asia  means  a  portion  of  Asia  Minor. 

15  See  Ch.  II.  foot-note  32. 

1®  Cicero,  Pro  Flacco,  c.  28. 

1''  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  96. 

"  Cicero,  who  had  aristocratic  prejudices,  writes  to  Quintus,  two 
years  after  he  had  been  in  Asia,  that  self-restraint  "  was  always  very  easy 


148  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [ciI.  VII. 

who  deemed  it  their  special  perquisite  to  plunder  the 
provinces.  It  is  probable  that  his  appointment  and  reten- 
tion in  office  were  partly,  at  least,  due  to  Jewish  influence 
at  Eome. 

]\Iore  indubitable  evidence  of  this  influence  on  Eoman 
politics  will  be  found  in  tlie  already-mentioned  speech  of 
Cicero.  He  says :  "  Next  in  order  is  that  odium  [caused 
by  the  seizure]  of  Jewish  gold.  .  .  .  You  know  what  a 
band  there  is  of  them,  with  what  concord  it  acts,  how 

MUCH    IT    CAN    ACCOMPLISH   IN    [OUR]    ASSEMBLIES.      I    will 

lower  my  voice  so  that  only  the  judges  can  hear.  For 
there  are  not  wanting  some  who  would  incite  them  against 
me  and  against  every  prominent  [or  perhaps  excellent] 
man ;  whom  I  will  not  assist  so  as  to  make  it  easier  for 
them."^^  This  may  be  the  language  of  irony,  but,  whether 
so  or  not,  we  must  suppose  that  the  Jews,  though  without 
office,  had  political  influence ;  else  the  language  would 
have  been  ridiculous. 

The  following  from  the  same  connection  indicates  pop- 
ular regard  and  reverence  for  their  religion :  "  Cneius  Pom- 

to  yon.  .  .  .  When  you  resist,  as  yon  do,  money,  pleasure,  the  desire  of 
all  things  [whatever],  .  .  .  the  Greeks  will  regard  you  as  one  of  ancient 
times,  or  even  think  you  a  divine  man  descended  from  heaven  into  the 
province.  .  .  .  What  can  there  be  so  excellent  and  desirahle  as  that 
.  ,  .  wherever  you  come  there  is  public  and  private  joy,  since  the  city 
seems  to  have  received  a  guard,  not  a  tyrant ;  the  home  a  guest,  not  a 
plunderer?"  —  Cicero,  Epist.  ad Fratrem.  1,  l,  Vol.  3,  pp.  530,  531,  Le- 
maire's  edit.  Quintus,  however,  had  a  sturdily  honest,  plain-spoken 
freedman,  Statius,  who  aided  him  greatly.  That  a  former  slave  should 
have  a  decision  in  important  matters  and  a  distribution  of  favors  was 
galling  to  the  aristocracy.  Cicero  remonstrated  against  it  in  his  own 
name  (p.  536),  states  in  another  letter  that  he  did  so,  not  of  his  own  judg- 
ment, but  as  a  means  of  acquainting  Quintus  with  the  talk  of  others 
{Epist.  2,  p.  552),  and  then  reiterates  his  former  remonstrance,  and  adds, 
tliat  all  objections  to  Quintus  were  based  on  his  freedman  (p.  553).  The 
reader  must  not  infer  that  disgust  at  the  elevation  of  a  freedman  pre- 
vented applications  to  liim  for  office.  Cicero  writes:  "How  many,  do 
yon  think,  have  applied  to  me  for  recommendation  to  Statius  ? "  —  Epist. 
ad  Fratrem.  1,  2,  p.  553. 
10  Cicero,  Pro  Flacco,  c.  28. 


§111.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  62-50.  149 

pey,  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  tliough  a  victor, 
touched  nothing  [to  take  it  away]  from  that  temple.  .  .  . 

I    DO    NOT    BELIEVE   THAT    [RESPECT    FOR]    THE   RELIGION   OF 

Jews,  and  enemies,  prevented  that  most  worthy  com- 
mander, but  his  own  moderation."^  Cicero  would  hardly 
have  defended  Pompey  against  suspicion  of  showing  rev- 
erence to  the  Jewish  religion,  unless  such  reverence  had 
been  common  enough,  even  among  the  wealthier  classes, 
to  justify  the  idea  that  Pompey  might  be  infected  with  it. 

Still  another  passage  implies  that  Jewish  writings,  or 
Jewish  teachings,  must  have  been  sufficiently  known  to 
point  the  sarcasm  which  it  contains.  The  Jews  claimed 
that  they  were  the  especial  favorites  of  heaven.  Cicero 
must  have  had  this  in  mind  while  saying :  "  How  dear 
[that  race]  may  be  to  the  immortal  gods  is  taught  by  their 
being  conquered,  expatriated,  enslaved."  '■^^  He  had  in  a 
previous  sentence  remarked :  "  Religious  reverence  for 
what  they  hold  sacred,  istorum  religio  sacroriim,  is  repug- 
nant to  the  glory  of  this  [our]  empire,  to  the  dignity  of 
our  name."  ^2  These  expressions  indicate  a  feeling  widely 
removed  from  indifference,  such  as  prevailed  towards  any 
religion  save  the  Jewish.  They  imply  a  struggle  against 
Judaism  and  misgivings  touching  the  result. 

Cicero  had  unblushingly  defended,  and  the  Senate  had 
unscrupulously  acquitted,  a  wrong-doer  because  he  was 
their  political  comrade.  The  community  lost  patience, 
and  a  reaction  followed.  One  item  of  the  reaction  was 
Cicero's  banishment,  in  B.  c.  58.  Anotlier  item  was  the 
abolition,  in  the  same  year,  of  an  existing  edict  against 
the  Egyptian  worship.^^"  This  meant  that  religions  were 
not  to  be  exclusively  under  patrician  control. 

Some  years  later,  about  b.  c.  54-51,  Cicero  wrote  his 
De  Ecpublica,  a  work  intended  for  the  defence  of  old  cus- 
toms and  patrician  privileges.  When  he  wrote  it,  Jewish 
teaching  must  already  have  been  familiar,  not  merely  to 
the  common  classes,  but  to  the  intelligent,  for  Cicero 

20  Cicero,  Pro  Flacco,  c.  28. 

'^  Ibid.  22  jj;^_ 

22»  See  Appendix,  Note  H,  foot-note  2. 


150  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

in  the  sixth  book  not  only  perverts  Jewish  phraseology 
and  the  Jewish  idea  of  judgment  by  teaching  that  devo- 
tion to  the  state  was  the  liighest  form  of  piety  and  tliat 
heavenly  rewards  awaited  such  as  showed  this  devotion,^^ 
but  he  uses  terms  of  which  there  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt 
that  they  were  technical  among  monotheists. 


^  The  sixth  book  of  the  Republic  contains,  in  imitation  of  a  somewhat 
similar  fiction  by  Plato,  a  document  called  Scipio's  Dream.  It  is  extant 
both  in  Greek  and  Latin,  and  in  either  shape  probably  proceeded  from 
Cicero.  The  Greek  terms  are  certainly  the  originals,  and  must  have  been 
in  his  mind  when  penning  the  Latin  ones.  The  document  can  be  found  iu 
Lemaire's  edition  of  Cicero,  0pp.  Philos.  Vol.  5 ;  the  Latin  {De  Repub- 
lica,  6,  G-  ID)  on  pp.  372-394,  and  the  Greek  (cc.  2-9)  on  pp.  407-415. 
The  document  mentions  (p.  408)  a  Supreme  Being,  dpxovTi  Of^,  who  ad- 
Ininisters  the  universe,  Sioikovvtl  rbv  koct/mov  ;  calls  the  universe  (p.  409) 
his  temple ;  (compare  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Stronuita,  5,  75) ;  regards  the 
body  [Ibid. )  as  a  prison  (compare  extracts  from  Clement  of  Alexandria 
and  Arnobius  in  Underworld  Mission,  Note  E  of  the  Appendix) ;  con- 
nects (Ibid.)  the  terms  5tKaio(rwij  and  eva^jSeia,  which,  in  Jewish  phra- 
seology, mean  righteousness  and  practical  monotheism,  and  mentions 
(p.  408)  TOTTov  wpi(jiJ.4vov,  the  "Allotted  Place,"  a  term  technical  among 
semi- Jewish  Christians  (see  Barnabas  and  Irenoeus,  cited  in  Underworld 
Mission,  p.  123  ;  3d  edit.  p.  118),  and  probably,  therefore,  among  Jews,  as 
a  place  for  righteous  souls.  It  represents  (p.  410)  that  the  Deity  dwells 
in,  or  is  identified  with,  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars,  that  is,  the  highest 
heaven,  and  mentions  (pp.  386,  412)  periodical  deluges  and  conflagrations 
which  must  occur  at  their  wpia/x^vov  xp^fov,  appointed  time.  Part  of  these 
views  may  be  borrowed  at  second-hand  from  disciples  of  the  Jews. 

The  verses  from  Erythrse  represented  the  care  of  iEneas  for  his  parent 
and  child  as  a  practical  recognition  of  God.  Cicero,  intentionally  no 
doubt,  misdefines  evcrefieia  (p.  409,  or,  in  his  translation,  pp.  377,  378, 
piety)  as  meaning  devotion  to  a  parent  or  relative,  and  therefore  in  its 
highest  form,  as  being  devotion  to  the  state.  He  lays  down  with  the 
emphasis  of  Orthodoxy,  "You  must  bklieve  as  follows  :  'To  all  who 
have  .  .  .  ENLARGED  their  country  the  attainment  is  made  known  of 
the  Allotted  Place  in  heaven,  where  the  blessed  enjoy  an  endless  age.'  " 
—  Page  408.  Scipio's  (adoptive)  father  and  grandfatlier  are  held  up  to 
him  (p.  409)  as  models  of  this  piety.  Ho  himself  (Scipio  Africamis 
Minor  ;  No.  21  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Biog.)  had  changed  tlie  annual  prayer 
for  ENLARGEMENT  into  One  for  PRESERVATION  of  the  country.  Was 
his  murder  —  like  that  of  Sejanus  —  due  to  Patricians  ?  "  The  opposite 
party  (Dio  Cass.  Vol.  1,  p.  86,  edit.  Sturz)  took  no  pleasure  in  it." 


§iv.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  49.  151 

§  IV.     B.  C.  49.     Romans  throio  away  Idol  Images  during 
the  Passover. 

We  now  come  to  an  annual  custom,  mentioned  by 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  which  must  have  lasted  a 
number  of  years,  but  whose  origin  and  termination  we 
have  no  means  of  accurately  determining.  Judging  from 
the  degree  of  calendrical  derangement^*  implied  in  the 
statement  of  Dionysius,  he^^  or  his  informant  must  have 
witnessed  the  ceremony  about  B.  c.  49.  It  consisted  in  a 
procession  of  lioman  dignitaries,  both  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical, on  the  first  day  of  the  Jewish  Passover,  to  a  sacred 
bridge  over  the  Tiber,  whence  they  threw  into  the  stream 
thirty  images,  —  representative  doubtless  of  idols,  —  call- 
ing them  Greeks,  or  Grecian.^^     The  words  of  Dionysius 

2*  Wlieu  Caesar  regulated  the  calendar  in  B.  c.  49,  he  inserted  eighty 
extra  days  into  that  year,  in  order  that  its  termination  might  agree  with 
the  now  established  computation.  At  the  date  to  which  Dionysius  al- 
ludes, the  equinox  must  have  occurred  between  the  1st  and  14th  of 
May,  —  a  discrepancy  from  present  reckoning  of  not  less  than  forty-two, 
nor  more  than  fifty-six,  days.  The  variation,  therefore,  from  our  calen- 
dar was  less  by  between  twenty-four  and  thirty-eight  days  than  it  was 
in  B.  c.  46.  As,  however,  the  difference  between  a  lunar  and  a  solar  year 
is  about  eleven  days,  there  would  have  been  about  three  years  requisite 
between  the  date  to  which  Dionysius  alludes,  and  the  year  B.  c.  46,  for 
the  increase  of  variation.  This  would  carry  us  back  to  B.  c.  49.  Any 
error  in  assuming  this  date  will  not  exceed  a  twelvemonth. 

25  Dionysius  settled  at  Rome  about  B.  c.  30.  He  may  have  visited 
there  in  b.  c.  49,  or  his  informant  may  have  witnessed  the  ceremony  in 
that  year. 

26  Judaism  had  spread  chiefly  in  countries  where  the  language  was 
Greek.  The  term  "Greek,"  or  "  Grecian,"  became,  therefore,  to  the  Jews, 
a  synonyme  for  Gentile,  or  idolatrous.  Thus  Paul,  in  writing  to  Ins  breth- 
ren, not  in  Greece,  but  at  Rome,  uses  the  term  "Greek"  (Rom.  1,  1(5 ;  2,  9 ; 
3,  9;  10,  12)  as  the  antithesis  for  Jew.  It  seems  to  have  the  same  mean- 
ing in  Acts  19,  10;  20,  21;  1  Cor.  10,  ?,2;  12,  13;  Galat.  3,  28;  Coloss. 
3,  11.  Jerome  (Vol.  8,  p.  700  C)  translates  "Gentiles"  where  the  Chron- 
icon  of  Eusebius  reads  "  Greeks."  In  the  Sibylline  Oracles  the  same  use, 
if  not  indubitable,  is  more  than  probable,  as  in  the  following :  — 

"Greeks  [Gentiles?]  shall  again  fight  each  other; 
Assyrians  and  Arabians  and  quiver-bearing  Medes, 


152  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CII.  VII. 

are :  "  This  tlie  Eomans  continued  nntil  my  time  to  per- 
form a  little  after  the  spring  equinox  in  the  month  of 
May,  on  what  are  called  the  Ides,  for  they  wished  it  to  be 
the  MIDDLE  day'-^"  of  the  month.  On  this  day  the  chief 
priests  who  are  called  pontiffs,  having  made  sacrifices  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  and  being  accompanied  by  the  virgins 
who  guard  the  perpetual  fire  and  by  the  praetors  and 
such  other  citizens  as  can  lawfully  attend  the  sacred  rites, 
throw  (threw  ?)  images,  in  human  form,  thirty  in  number, 
from  the  sacred  bridge  into  the  river  Tiber,  calling  them 
'  Greeks.'  But  as  regards  the  sacrifices  and  other  sacred 
rites  which  Eome  performs  according  to  Grecian,  on  its 
OWN  LOCAL  CUSTOMS,  we  will  elsewhere  treat."  ^ 

There  can  be  scarcely  a  doubt  that  tlie  custom  origi- 
nated in  some  Sibylline  admonition  to  throw  away  idols, 
in  which  case  it  cannot  date  further  back  than  B.  c.  76. 
The  foolish  explanation  —  not  his  own  —  which  Diony- 
sius  has  prefixed  to  his  narrative,^^  shows  that  when  he 

Persians  and  Sicilians,  and  the  Lydians  will  revolt, 

[As  also  the]  Thracians  and  Bithynians  and  dwellers  by  the  Nile." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  11,  173-176. 
"  Fifteen  centuries  have  passed 
Since  Greeks  [Gentiles  ?]  were  ruled  by  proud  kings, 
Who  initiated  the  chief  crime  for  mortals, 
The  many  images  of  jperishing  gods  for  tliose  who  go  to  ruin." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  551-554. 
See  also  Book  3,  545,  564.     In  the  former  of  whicli  lines  I  notice  that 
Alexandre,  the  French  editor  of  these  Oracles,  understands  "Greece"  as 
meaning  heathendom  in  genei'al. 

In  the  caption  of  two  works  sometimes  attributed  to  Justin  Martyr,  — 

Oratio  ad  Groecos  and  Cohortatio  ad  Gra^cos,  — and  in  that  of  Tatian's 

work,  Adversus  Grmcos,  the  term  "Greeks"  is  evidently  used  for  Gentiles. 

^  The  Jewish   Passover  began   on  the   15th  of   that  month   whose 

commencement,  or  new  moon,  was  nearest  to  the  spring  equinox.     The 

MIDDLE  DAY  of  the  Roman  lunar  month  must  necessarily  have  been  the 

15th.     Tlie  shorter  months  had  a  middle  day,  and  the  longer  ones  had 

not. 

2»  Dionysius  Halicarnass.  1,  38,  Vol.  1,  p.  97.    Cp.  Ch.  IV.  n.  13. 

"^  "  It  is  said  that  the  ancients  offered  human  sacrifices  to  Saturn,  — 

a  kind  of  sacrifices  used  at  Carthage  during  its  existence  and  among  Oauls 

to  this  day,  and  among  some  others  of  the  "Western  nations.    But  Hercules, 


§  IV.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  B.  C.  49.  153 

published  his  work,  in  B.  c.  7,  there  can  have  been  but 
few  persons  who  recollected  the  first  procession  of  this 
kind.  The  conservative  party  would  naturally  feel  very 
sore  at  the  remembrance  of  it.  Yet  any  attempt  to  ex- 
plain it  away  must  have  proved  difficult,  if  this  were  the 
most  successful.  The  concluding  remark  of  Dionysius 
evinces  that  the  custom  was  well  known  NOT  TO  be  a 
Roman  one.  He  himself  cannot  have  credited  the  expla- 
nation which  he  quotes,  and  may  have  meant  it  as  a  piece 
of  dry  humor.  Had  the  custom  been  of  heathen  origin, 
one  tithe  of  the  antiquity  which  he  attributes  to  it  would 
have  placed  it  among  the  honored  ancestral  observances 
for  the  continuance  of  which  the  conservative  party  were 
sticklers. 

As  Cajsar  became  Pontifex  Maximus  in  b.  c.  63,3*^  and 
was  killed  in  b.  c.  44,  the  ceremony  must  have  existed  in 
his  official  term  and  with  his  sanction.  Whether  he  ever 
headed  the  procession  is  a  point  on  which  we  have  no 
historical  statement. 

Under  the  year  b.  c.  49,  Dio  Cassius  enumerates  several 

wishing  to  abolish  such  a  sacrificial  custom,  consecrated  the  altar  on  the 
hill  of  Saturn,  and  originated  the  burning  of  sacred  [or  irreproachable] 
incense  in  a  pure  fire,  and,  that  men  might  have  no  anxiety  at  despising 
their  national  customs,  he  taught  the  inhabitants,  as  a  means  of  mollify- 
ing the  divine  anger,  that,  in  place  of  the  men,  whom,  after  binding  them 
hand  and  foot,  they  were  in  the  habit  of  throwing  into  the  Tiber,  they 
should  make  human  images  adorned  after  the  same  fashion  and  throw 
them  into  the  stream."  — Dionys.  Halicar.  1,  38,  Vol.  1,  pp.  95,  96. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  incense  was  to  be  offered  on  the  hill  of  Saturn, 
and  that  no  distinct  mention  is  made  of  its  being  offered  to  Saturn.  Three 
hundred  years  before  the  Erythraean  verses  Saturn  seems  to  have  been 
practically  ignored  by  the  Romans.  Half  a  century  after  their  composi- 
tion Italy  was  supposed,  on  authority  of  the  Sibylline  verses,  to 
have  been  sacred  to  him.  See  on  this  subject,  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  ii. 
Part  C,  especially  foot-note  49.  Augustus,  and  the  conservatives  in  b.  c. 
17,  ignored  Saturn,  who  must  for  some  reason  have  been  distasteful  to 
patricians. 

^  Dio  Cassius,  37,  37.  The  law  of  Sylla  was,  after  a  struggle,  re- 
pealed, and  that  of  Domitius,  which  gave  the  election  to  the  people, 
revived.     One  object  of  this  was,  doubtless,  to  effect  Csesar's  election. 


154  JUDAISM   AT    ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

supposed  portents,  including  repeated  earthquakes  and  a 
total  eclipse  of  the  sun,^^  which  seem  to  have  prompted, 
as  usual.  Sibylline  predictions.^^  The  civil  war  between 
Csesar  and  Pompey  was  about  commencing,  and  the  par- 
tisans of  Pompey  endeavored  to  conciliate  the  Jews  by  a 
series  of  favors,  which  shows  that  their  influence,  at  least 
in  Asia  Minor,  was  deemed  important.^ 

§  V.    B.  C.  44.    Cccsars  Death.   Cicero  disavows  Heathenism. 

In  this  year  Caesar  w^as  assassinated,  and  at  his  funeral 
pyre  the  Jews  were  conspicuous.^*  The  attachment  of 
their  body,  or  of  its  major  part,  to  Caesar  is  explicable  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  the  popular  leader,  and  that  their 
chief  affinities  were  with  the  popular  party.  He  had, 
however,  in  earl}^  life,  sought  in  Asia  Minor  a  refuge  from 
Sylla,  and  was  likely  enough,  while  there,  if  he  liad  not 
already  done  it,  to  unlearn  some  religious  errors  of  his 


31  Dio  Cass.  41,  14. 

32  "  Certain  oracles  were  sung  as  being  by  Sib^-lla,  and  certain  inspired 
persons  made  frequent  predictions."  —  Dio  Cass.  41,  l-t. 

33  Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities,  14,  10,  l.)-li',  has  collected  some  of 
these  decrees  made  during  the  consulship  of  Lentulus  and  Marcellus, 
B.  c.  42.  The  reader  of  Josephus  must  to  some  extent  invert  his  order, 
if  it  is  to  "be  made  chronological.  The  decrees  of  Dolabella,  which  Jose- 
phus gives  previously  to  the  above,  were,  in  fact,  five  years  later.  Of  the 
decrees  in  b.  c.  49,  or  which  Josephus  seems  to  place  in  that  year,  one 
(§  13)  exempts  Asiatic  Jews  from  military  service ;  four  (§§  14,  16, 18,  19) 
exempt,  or  dismiss,  from  military  service  Jews,  of  different  localities 
[even  those],  who  were  Roman  citizens;  one  (§  17)  authorizes  the  Jews  of 
Sardis  [even  ?  if  they  were],  Roman  citizens,  to  settle  their  disputes  at 
their  own  tribunals;  and  one  (§  15)  directs  the  magistrates  of  Cos,  in 
accordance  with  some  decree  of  the  [Roman  ?]  Senate,  to  transmit  safely 
home  certain  individuals.  Si.K  additional  decrees  (§§  20  -  25)  in  favor  of 
the  Jews  may  belong  to  this  same  year,  but  Jose})hus  has  not  furnished 
means  in  each  case  of  determining  the  date. 

3*  "A  multitude  of  foreign  nations  .  .  .  gave  vent  to  grief,  each  in 
its  own  fashion ;  but  especially  the  Jews,  who  (!ven  frequented  the  funeral 
pyre  during  continuis  consecutive  (or  whole)  nights."  —  Suetonius, 
Ccesar,  c.  84. 


§v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  44.  155 

country.^  Moreover,  if  he  did  not  learn  to  regulate  his 
own  life  by  monotheistic  rules,  he  may  have  acquired 
truer  ideas  of  human  rights  and  human  civilization. 
These  were  likely  to  be  strengthened  rather  than  im- 
peded by  his  political  position. 

The  Gallic  population  at  Eome  had  been,  during  many 
years  befoi'e  Ctcsar's  time,  a  steady  ally  of  the  popular 
party.  His  campaigns  in  Gaul,  even  if  directed  against 
their  aristocracies,  may  have  wounded  the  pride  of  Gauls 
in  Italy  and  alienated  many  of  them  from  himself,  and 
if  so,  he  may  have  deemed  this  an  additional  motive  for 
keeping,  or  increasing,  by  political  favors,^^  any  good-will 
which  the  Jews  owed  him  either  as  the  popular  leader,  or 
as  the  opponent  of  Pompey,  who  had  profaned  their  temple. 

It  may  be  a  question  whether  Caesar  openly  counte- 
nanced or  not  the  proposed  application  to  himself  of  a 
Sibylline  passage,^"  whicli  referred  to  the  Deity.  If  he 
did,  his  action  was  likely  to  shock  reverential  —  by  which 
must  not  be  understood  the  most  zealous  —  Jews  even 
more  than  the  passage  disquieted  his  political  opponents. 

After  Caesar's  assassination,  Antony,  then  consul,  was 
left  temporarily  as  leader  for  the  popular,  or,  to  speak 
more  exactly,  the  anti-patrician,  party.  He  first  opposed 
and  afterwards  bought  over  Dolabella.     The  two  made  a 


^  Cicero  may  have  written  from  purely  political  motives,  yet  he  pro- 
fesses that  his  own  eyes  were  partly  ojiened,  or  his  doubts  confirmed,  by 
comparing  notes  with  a  king  from  Asia  Minor.  His  words  are :  "I  think 
that  the  law  concerning  augurs,  although  it  was  originally  established 
because  of  a  belief  in  divination,  yet  has  afterwards  been  preserved  and 
retained  for  political  reasons,  rcipublicce  causa.  .  .  .  Let  us  examine 
auguries  of  foreign  nations  which  are  not  so  much  artificiosa  a  matter 
of  study  [in  the  sense  of  artifice  ?]  as  of  superstition.  .  .  .  Deiotarus 
used  to  inquire  our  rules  of  augury  from  me,  I  theirs  from  him.  Immor- 
tal gods,  what  a  diff"erence  !  How  antagonistic,  even,  some  of  them 
were  !  "  —  Cicero,  De  Divinat.  2,  (35,  36),  To,  TO.  Whether  Cicero  here 
uses  artificiosa  in  a  bad  sense  may  be  a  question.  Compare  De  Divinat. 
1,  (18),  .34  ;  2,  (11),  26,  on  its  meaning. 

^  Josephus,  in  his  Antiquities  (14, 10,  2-8),  has  made  a  collection 
of  seven  decrees  by  Cfesar  in  favor  of  the  Jews. 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  iii.  foot-note  99. 


156  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  VII. 

bid  for  Jewish  favor.^^  Antagonism  to  Ciesar's  murder- 
ers may  have  predisposed  many  Jews  towards  them,  but 
Antony's  daughter  (sister-in-law  of  Tiberius)  at  a  later 
date  sympathized  obviously  with  monotheism  even  if  she 
were  not  a  professed  monotheist,  and  it  is  possible  that 
Antony  himself  may  have  had  more  than  a  merely  polit- 
ical appreciation  of  the  Jews. 

The  patrician  party  equally  needed  Jewisli  support,  but 
the  proceedings  of  Cassius  in  the  East  aimed  at  extorting 
rather  than  conciliating  it.s'^  The  suggestion,  also  by 
Cicero,  published  in  this,  or  early  in  the  following,  year, 
that  Sibylla's  teachings  should  be  subordinated  to  sena- 
torial control,"^*^  was  not  calculated  to  win  Jewish  good-will. 

§  VI.    B.  6'.  43-31.     Virgil  and  Horace.      The  Oracle  at 
Delphi. 

In  B.  c.  43,  the  year  after  Caesar's  death,  a  triumvirate 
was  formed,  professedly  in  the  interests  of  the  popular 
party,  by  Antony,  Lepidus,  and  Augustus  Cffisar.  It  fa- 
vored the  Jews,  as  we  learn  from  Antony's  action  in  their 
behalf,  subsequently  to  the  defeat  of  Brutus  and  Cassius.*^ 

^  Josephus  narrates  in  his  Antiquities  (14,  10,  9,  10)  the  joint  action 
of  Antony  and  Dohibella,  who  introdnced  to  the  Senate,  or  to  snch  part 
of  it  as  remained  at  Rome,  the  ambassadors  of  Hyreanus,  the  Jewish  high- 
priest,  with  whom  an  agreement  was  made,  professedly  in  confirmation  of 
something  which  CiBsar  liad  intended.  We  have  from  the  same  autlior, 
in  §§  11,  12,  Dohibella's  action  in  Asia,  exempting  the  Jews  from  military 
service.  The  joint  action  of  the  Senate  and  of  Antony  and  Dolabella,  AS 
CONSULS,  is  quoted  by  Josephus  in  detail,  as  if  he  were  transcribing  a 
public  document.  The  date  of  this  action  is,  according  to  his  citation, 
February  9.  The  name  of  the  month,  however,  must  be  a  mistake,  since 
Dolabella  did  not  become  consul  until  after  tlie  death  of  Csesar  in  March, 
nor  did  Antony  in  the  outset  acknowledge  him  as  consul. 

39  Josephus  enumerates,  in  his  Antiquities  (14,  11,  2),  the  exaction 
of  seven  hundred  talents,  or  about  seven  million  dollars,  from  JudiBa,  as 
also  the  enslavement  of  four  towns  or  cities.  Evi;n  if  the  extortion  be 
exaggerated,  this  was  not  a  method  of  conciliation. 

*"  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  99. 

"  The  action  and  decrees  of  Antony  are  recorded  liy  Josephus  in  his 


§vi.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   B.  C.  43-31.  157 

Virgil's  Fourth  Eclogue  belongs  in  the  earlier  portion  of 
this  period,  and  is,  of  itself,  evidence  that  Jewish  writings, 
current  under  the  name  of  Sibylla,  had  much  hold  on 
the  public  niind.'*^  Some  other  marked  allusions  by  him 
and  Horace  to  Sibylline  teachings  may  fall  within  or  near 
the  same  epoch .^^  Ca3sar's  death  gave  occasion  to  such 
effusions**  of  a  more  temporary  character.  Some  of  tliese 
may  have  occasioned  transient  excitement,  but  tliey  can 
have  exercised  no  such  permanent  influence  as  the  Ery- 
thraean verses,  or  as  those  moral  and  religious  teachings, 
Avhether  in  tlie  Old  Testament  or  outside  of  it,  which 
stimulated  personal  rectitude  and  appealed  to  the  moral 
sense  *^  and  higher  wants  of  man. 

There  is  a  feature  of  tlie  times  which  calls  here  for 
attention.  Cicero  in  his  work  on  Divination,  published 
perhaps  in  B.  c.  44,  but  not  later  certainly  than  b.  c.  43, 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  brother  Quintus  an  explanation 
of  why  the  Pythian  oracle  was  unable,  or  less  able  than 
formerly,  to  tell  the  truth.*^     We  shall  in  the  course  of 

Antiquities  (14,  12,  2-.^).  He  reversed  what  Cassius  had  done,  and  set 
free  those  whom  he  had  enslaved.  The  Triumvirs  "managed  matters 
according  to  their  own  will  and  desire,  so  that  [to  patricians  ?]  the  sole  rule 
of  Csesar  appeared  [in  comparison]  a  golden  one."  — Dio  Cassms,  47, 15. 

*^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-notes  51,  74. 

«  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-notes  32,  58,  60,  65,  71,  80,  83,  84. 

**  See  Sibyl.  Orac.  11,  261 -291. 

*5  The  reader  may  wish  in  this  connection  to  examine  the  Ajipendix, 
Note  A,  §  viir. 

*^  Quintus  Cicero  attributed  foreknowledge  to  natural  endowment  (see 
Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  96),  and  also,  as  apparent  in  the  jiresent 
extract,  to  some  force  of  nature,  but  not  to  the  inspiration  of  a  super- 
human being.  ' '  Could  that  Oracle  at  Delphi  have  been  so  celebrated 
and  renowned,  so  loaded  with  gifts  of  all  peoples  and  kings,  unless  every 
age  had  experienced  the  truth  of  its  oracles  ?  Since  a  long  time  IT  HAS 
CEASED  TO  DO  SO.  As  uow  it  has  less  renown  because  the  truth  of  its 
oracles  is  less  prominent,  so  formerly  it  had  not  been  so  honored  save  for 
its  eminent  truthfulness.  Perhaps  that  power  from  the  earth,  whicli  used 
to  excite  the  mind  of  Pythia  by  a  divine  influence,  may  have  vanished  by 
age  as  we  see  some  rivers  to  have  dried  up,  or  else  to  be  twisted,  or  de- 
flected, into  a  different  channel.    But  be  that  as  you  will,  for  the  question 


158  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

this  work  find  a  discussion  as  to  wliy  it  had  died  oiit.*'^ 
The  decadence  of  the  Oracle  l:ept  sucli  approximate  pace 
with  the  sjn'ead  of  Judaism  as  to  justify  a  belief  that 
Jewish  teachings,  aided  eventually  by  those  of  Christians, 
had  no  slight  share  in  driving  it  out  of  repute. 

A  fair  question  may  be  whether  Cicero  exaggerated  his 
brother's  belief,  or  any  then  existing  Stoic  belief,  in  omens. 
He  himself,  in  his  De  Lcgihiis,  written  during  patrician 
rule,  had  strongly  advocated  that  religious  matters  should 
be  exclusively  controlled  by  the  Senate.^^  His  work,  Le 
Divinatione,  though  finished,  or  retouched,  after  Coesar's 
death,  must  have  been  mostly  written  during  that  indi- 
vidual's supremacy.  In  this  he  endeavors  to  show  that  he 
had  less  sympathy  with,  and  belief  in,  the  state  religion 
than  even  the  (half-Judaized)  Stoics. 

The  first  book  of  Satires  by  Horace  was,  according  to  all 
critics  of  his  writings,  published  during  the  period  covered 
by  the  present  section.  It  contains  two  passages,  one  of 
which  strongly  illustrates  the  deep  hold  taken  by  Judaism 
on  the  Eomans,  and  the  other  implies  proselyting  activity 
on  the  part  of  Jews.  Horace  represents  himself  in  one  of 
these  as  trying  to  shake  off  a  bore,  who  had  fastened  on 
him  in  the  street.  In  his  predicament  he  stops  a  friend 
whom  he  meets,  and  —  after  a  hint  that  he  wished  relief 
from  his  prior  companion  —  remarks,  "  You  had  private 
business  with  me."  The  friend  responds.  Yes,  "  but  this 
is  the  THIETIETH  Sabbath,"  or,  in  other  words,  the  last  day 
of  the  passover,  the  great  day  of  the  feast ;  and  excuses 
himself  on  the  ground  that  he  in  common  with  THE  MANY, 
could  not  use  such  a  day  for  business.*^ 

is  a  large  one,  yet  let  this  be  considered  as  established,  — which  is  unde- 
niable, unless  we  would  upset  all  history,  —  that  that  oracle  was  during 
many  ages  veracious."  —  Cicero,  Dc  Divinat.  1,  (19),  37,  3S. 

*'  See  a  quotation  from  Lamprias  in  Ch.  X.  §  IV.  3. 

«  See  Ch.  I.  note  6. 

*^  "Fuscus  Aristius  meets  me,  a  special  friend,  who  well  knew  the 
fellow.  AVe  stop.  'Where  do  you  come  from'  and  'Where  are  YOU 
going.'  He  asks  and  gives  answer.  I  began  to  take  hold  of  and  pull 
his  unaccommodating  arms,  intimating  by  a  side-look  that  he  .should 
extricate  me.     He,  smiling  with  ill-timed  jocosity,  dissembled  [his  com- 


§  VII.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   B.C.  30-18.  159 

In  the  otlier  passage  Horace  writes:  "If  you  do  not 
give  in,  a  numerous  band  of  poets  shall  come  to  my  aid, 
—  for  there  are  many  more  of  us,  —  and,  like  the  Jews, 
we  will  COMPEL  you  to  give  in  to  our  crowd."  ^'^  The 
passage  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the  statement  of  Gib- 
bon, who,  even  yet,  is  regarded  as  the  standard  modern 
historian  of  Eome.^^ 


§  VII.     B.  C.  30  -  18.      Patrician  RcacMon.      Virgil  hur- 
lesques  Part  of  the  Hrythrwan  Verses. 

During  this  period  there  is  no  direct  evidence  of  special 
consequence  in  determining  the  relations  of  Judaism,  or 
monotheism,  towards  heathenism,  though  one,  at  least, 
of  the  predictions  concerning  Eome's  destruction  belongs, 
IN  ITS  PRESENT  SHAPE,  to  the  year  B.  c.  30.^^  There  is, 
however,  indirect  evidence  that  Augustus,  influenced  by 

prehension  of  me].  I  began  to  lose  patience.  '  Certainly  you  said  you 
wished  to  speak  privately  with  me  on  I  do  not  know  exactly  what.'  'I 
remember  well,'  [he  says,]  'but  I  will  speak  with  you  at  a  more  suitable 
time.  To-day  is  the  thirtieth  sabbath.  Would  you  diametrically  oppose 
the  circumcised  Jews?'  'I  have  no  religious  scruples,'  was  my  answer. 
*  But  for  me,  I  am  somewhat  weaker  ;  one  of  the  many.  You  will  par- 
don me.  I  will  speak  with  you  some  other  time.'  "  —  Horace,  Satires, 
Book  1,  9,  Gl  -  72. 

^  Horace,  Satires,  Book  1,  4,  140-143. 

^1  "The  Jewish  religion  was  admirably  fitted  for  defence,  but  it  was 
never  designed  for  conquest  ;  and  it  seems  probable  that  the  number  of 

proselytes  was  never  much  superior  to  that  of  apostates The 

obligation  of  preaching  to  the  Gentiles  the  faith  of  Moses  had  never  been 
inculcated  as  a  precept  of  the  law,  nor  were  the  Jews  inclined  to  impose 
it  on  themselves  as  a  voluntary  duty ;  .  .  .  and  whenever  the  God  of 
Israel  acquired  any  new  votaries,  he  was  much  more  indebted  to  the  in- 
constant liumor  of  polytheism  than  to  the  active  zeal  of  his  own  mission- 
aries." —  Gibbon,  c.  15,  Vol.  2,  pp.  61,  62,  Philada.  edit.  1816.  One 
better  acquainted  than  Gibbon  with  Jewish  habits  of  that  date  told  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  (Matt.  23,  l"),  "You traverse  sea  and  land  to  make 
a  proselyte."  Of  course  the  most  zealous  proselyters  were  usually  not  the 
moral  exemplars  of  Judaism. 

6!2  See  Ch.  VI.  §  ii.  No.  1. 


160  JUDAISM  AT   KOME.  [CH.  VII. 

the  patrician  element  then  in  power,  was  preparing  to 
throw  off  friendship,  not  only  towards  the  popular  party, 
but  towards  monotheism,  its  ally.  Virgil,  wlio  was  now 
elaborating  his  ^neid  under  the  patronage  of  Augustus, 
would  hardly  have  converted  "  the  chaste  vEneas "  of 
Jewish  song  ^^  into  a  libertine,  the  shameless  imitator  of 
Ulysses,  had  he  not  deemed  that  such  an  antithesis  to 
Jewish  views  of  morality  would  be  acceptable  to  his 
patron.  The  suppression  of  the  Egyptian  religion  in  B.  c. 
21  (see  Appendix,  Note  H,  foot-note  1)  was  a  first  step 
by  the  patricians  towards  reasserting  their  control  of 
religious  matters. 

§  VIII.  B.  C.  18 --4.  D.  2.  Attach  on  MonotJieism  and 
Popular  nights. 
In  this  period  Augustus  became  a  tool  of  reactionaries,^* 
who  made  him  their  mouth-piece  in  driving  from  the  Sen- 
ate and  (Indirect  Testimony,  p.  82)  condemning  to  death 
their  opponents.  An  effort  was  made  to  undo  what  had 
been  accomplished  for  equal  rights  in  the  time  of  Julius 
Csesar,  and  therewith  to  check  the  progress  of  monothe- 
ism. The  adherents  of  monotheism  and  popular  rights 
were,  in  b.  c.  18  or  17,  eliminated  by  fraud  and  violence 
from  the  Senate.  The  wealthier  aristocracy  took  sole  pos- 
session, admitting  a  few  only  of  their  partisans,  and,  as 
soon  as  Augustus  became  high-])riest,  required  every  one 
to  burn  i'rankincense  before  proceeding  to  business,  —  a 
rule  which  excluded  monotheists  and  such  of  tlieir  allies 

^  See  in  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  vi.  the  quotation  from  line  42  of  Hor- 
ace's Secular  Poem  or  Age  Song,  and  compare  with  it  the  remarks  on 
iEneas  in  the  same  Note,  §  ii.  Part  D. 

**  The  extent  to  which  Livia,  wife  of  Augustus,  made  herself,  during 
her  son's  reign,  the  active  instrument  of  the  aristocracy,  renders  probable 
that  they  knew  how,  in  the  present  instance,  to  avail  themselves  of  her 
influence.  The  retirement  of  Tiberius,  in  B.  c.  6,  to  Ehodes,  was  un- 
questionably caused  by  reactionaries  at  Rome.  When  Augustus  attained 
a  better  comprehension  of  these  latter,  Tiberius,  in  A.  T>.  2,  returned,  and 
became  (see  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  8)  a  trusted  adviser  of  his  step- 
father, who,  much  to  the  disgust  of  patrician  reactionaries,  left  him  as 
his  successor. 


§  VIII.]     CHEONOLOGICAL  NAEEATIVE,  B.  C.  18 -A.  D.  2.       161 

in  the  popular  party  as  had  too  much  self-respect  to  give 
themselves  the  appearance  of  believing  what  they  did 
not.  The  Senate  was  turned  into  a  secret  conclave,^^  so  as 
to  render  its  members  irresponsible  to  the  community. 

This  expurgation,  so  called,  of  the  Senate,  was  prear- 
ranged in  one  of  those  complicated  ways^^  which  persons 
are  apt  to  adopt  when  wishing  to  conceal  their  real  pur- 
pose. Finesse,  however,  failed,  and  force  had  to  be  em- 
ployed.^" That  there  was  no  intention  of  leaving  liberty 
of  action  to  those  nominally  intrusted  with  it,  is  obvious 
from  the  reproaches  of  Augustus  to  Labeo.^^  Tlie  pro- 
I'essed  fear  lest  the  former  should  be  assassinated  was 
probably  a  poliuical  ruse  to  impose  upon  him,  or  create 
sympathy  in  his  favor.^^  The  restriction  of  the  sena- 
te See  Ch.  V.  note  59, 

^^  Augushis,  according  ttt  Dio  Cassius,  54,  13,  selected  thirty  men, 
after  having  taken  an  oath  to  choose  the  best,  or  the  most  prominent,  for 
the  Greek  word  may  mean  either.  These  thirty  were  each  to  write  down 
the  names  of  five  others,  and,  from  each  five,  one  was  selected  by  lot  as  a 
senator.  These  thirty  senators  were,  each  of  them,  again  to  select  five. 
The  selections,  however,  did  not  suit  Augustus,  and,  after  some  progress 
had  been  made,  he  chose  the  remainder  himself. 

^^  The  expurgation  "was  conducted  by  himself  and  Agrippa.  On  this 
occasion  he  is  believed  to  have  taken  his  seat  as  he  presided,  with  a  coat 
of  mail  under  his  tunic,  and  a  sword  by  his  side,  and  with  ten  of  the 
stoutest  men  of  senatorial  rank,  who  were  his  friends,  standing  round 
his  chair.  Cordus  Cremutius  relates  that  no  senator  was  suffered  to  ap- 
proach him,  except  singly,  and  after  having  his  bosom  searched."  —Sue- 
ton.  August.  35,  Bohn's  trans. 

^  "When  Antistius  Labeo  inscribed  him  (Lepidus)  among  the  sena- 
tors .  .  .  (Augustus)  at  first  charged  him  with  perjury  and  threatened 
him  with  punishment.  But  on  his  saying,  '  What  dreadful  thing  have  I 
done  by  retaining  in  the  Senate  one  whose  continuance  in  the  higli-priest- 
hood  you  overlook  ? '  (Augustus)  gave  no  further  vent  to  his  anger."  — 
Dio  Cass.  54,  15. 

^  "  When  conversation  took  place  in  the  Senate  to  the  effect  that  there 
was  need  of  their  acting  in  rotation  as  guards  for  Augustus,  (Antistius 
Labeo)  not  venturing  to  contradict,  nor  enduring  to  yield  assent,  [re- 
marked] that,  '  I  snore,  and  cannot  [therefore]  sleep  in  front  of  him.'  "  — 
Dio  Cass.  54,  i.-i. 

"  After  these  things  [incident  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  Senate]  had 

K 


162  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

torial  dignity  to  the  most  wealthy  ^'^  was  unlikely  to 
secure  either  honesty,  impartiality,  or  civil  capacity  in  its 
members.  The  reactionary  patricians  gained  their  point, 
but  at  the  cost  of  public  indignation,  which  for  a  time 
counteracted  some  of  its  advantages.  Men,  of  whom 
a  need  was  felt,  refused  seats  in  the  reconstituted  Sen- 
ate,^i  and   Labeo,  the  ablest  jurist  of  his  day,  refused  to 

taken  place,  many  immediately  and  many  subsequently  were,  truly  or 
falsely,  charged  with  plotting  against  him  (Augustus)  and  Agrippa.  .  .  . 
In  the  present  instance  Augustus  punished  some."  —  Dio  Cass.  54,  15. 

60  "Augustus  first  fixed  it"  (the  property  requisite  for  a  senator)  "at 
400,000  sesterces,  afterwards  increased  it  to  double  this  sum,  and  at  last 
even  to  1,200,000  sesterces. "  — Smith,  i)tc/!.  of  Antiq.  p.  1018,  col.  2. 
Under  this  arrangement  those  who  were  the  most  unscrupulous  in  plun- 
dering the  provinces  would  be  best  provided  with  the  requirements  for  a 
senator.  Dio  Cassius  tells  us  (54,  17)  that  to  some  persons  of  "worthy 
life,"  who  had  not  acquired  the  property  requisite  for  a  senator,  Augus- 
tus made  up  the  deficiency.  It  would,  however,  be  indubitably  a  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  he  included  among  these  people  of  ' '  worthy  life  " 
any  of  his  political  opponents.  It  was  more  probably  a  pretext  for 
strengthening  himself  in  the  Senate.  Compare  on  p.  116  (in  note  131) 
the  action  of  Claudius  about  sixty  years  later. 

^^  Augustus  again  undertook  in  B.  c.  13  to  reconstitute  the  Senate. 
According  to  Dio  Cassius,  "  there  was  no  longer  any  one  found  who  would 
willingly  be  a  senator,  but  there  were  even  sons  and  grandsons  of  senators, 
who,  some  from  real  poverty  [?],  and  others  because  humbled  by  the  mis- 
fortunes of  their  ancestors  [?],  made  little  account  of  the  senatorial 
dignity,  and,  even  if  enrolled,  swore  themselves  out."  —  Dio  Cass.  54, 
26.  This  last  statement  means  that  they  testified  under  oath  to  their  not 
having  the  requisite  pecuniary  or  other  qualifications. 

Dio  is  certainly  mistaken  when  he  assigns  ancestral  misfortune,  and 
consequent  humility,  as  the  motive  of  these  men.  Only  five  years  pre- 
viously, in  the  reorganization  of  the  Senate,  multitudes  were  unwilling  to 
be  left  out,  and  great  dissatisfaction  was  occasioned  by  their  omission. 
Misfortunes  "to  their  ancestors"  cannot  have  been  numerous  during 
these  five  years.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  measures  of  Augustus  had 
eliminated  the  more  conscientious,  or  j)opular  senators,  so  that  he  either 
became  ashamed  of  the  residuum,  or  found  it  politically  too  weak  for  his 
purposes,  and  that  new  members,  when  chosen,  had  either  too  much  con- 
science, or  too  much  respect  for  popular  feeling,  to  take  a  seat.  Compul- 
sion became  requisite  (Dio  Cass.  54,  26)  as  a  means  of  filling  the  Senate. 


§viii.]      CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,  B.  C.  18  -  A.  D.  2.       163 

be  a  consul. ^^  He  probably  saw,  that  to  accept  it  would 
render  him  the  executive  of  decrees  which  his  moral 
sense  repudiated. 

That,  throughout  the  preceding  struggle,  monotheism 
and  popular  rights  must,  as  usual,  have  been  allies,  and 
joint  objects  of  patrician  animosity,  is  plain  from  a  num- 
ber of  circumstances. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  noteworthy  that,  promptly  after 
the  senatorial  expurgation,  Agrippa,  the  leader  and  im- 
personation of  patricianism,  went  for  four  years  to  Asia 
and  Judsea,  the  stronghold  of  Judaism.  This  is  precisely 
where  we  should  expect  liim  to  go,  if  a  blow  were  aimed 
at  monotheism  or  at  such  Greek  views  as  originated  in 
it,  so  that  its  chief  supporters  needed  to  be  soothed^  or 
watched.     If,  on  the  other  hand,  Augustus  were  engaged 

^2  «'  Labeo,  when  the  consulship  was  offered  him  by  Augustus,  refused 
the  honor."  —  Digcsta,  Book  1,  tit.  2,  [§]  2,  IF  47,  in  the  Corpus  Juris 
CiviLis,  Vol.  1,  col.  (of  the  Digest.)  8  ;  quoted  also  in  Smith,  Diet,  of 
Biog.  Vol.  1,  p.  599,  col.  2,  where  the  et  should  have  been  in  brackets. 

^  Agrippa  is  said  by  Josephus  (Ardiq.  16,  2,  l)  to  have  feasted  the 
Jews  and  to  have  offered  a  hecatomb  of  sacrifices.  He  also,  if  we  may 
trust  Philo  (Embassy  to  Caitts,  c.  37,  Paris  edit.  p.  726),  must  have  been 
profuse  in  his  laudation  of  the  temple,  of  the  high-priest's  adornments, 
and  of  whatever  could  flatter  Jewish  vanity.  The  gifts  to  the  temple, 
made  professedly  by  his  wife  Julia,  tlie  daughter  of  Augustus,  may  have 
been  his  own  at  this  date,  or  she  may  have  belonged  to  "the  many  "  who 
were  imbued  with  reverence  for  Judaism,  and  her  gifts  may  have  been  at 
some  other  time.  Philo,  who  mentions  them  {Embassy  to  Caius,  c.  40, 
Paris  edit.  p.  729),  gives  us  no  clue  to  the  date  at  which  they  were  made. 

Agrippa,  in  the  second  of  his  four  years'  stay  in  Asia,  made  a  brief  ex- 
pedition to  Pontus,  the  narrative  of  which  in  Josephus  (Antiq.  16,  2,  2) 
makes  no  mention  of  fighting.  Herod  seems  to  have  come  to  him  promptly, 
and  to  have  acted  repeatedly  in  Asia  Minor  as  mediator  between  Agrippa 
and  the  provincials  (Josephus,  Antiq.  16,  2,  2,  3),  paying,  in  some  cases, 
the  taxes  of  the  latter  to  Ciesar  out  of  his  own  pocket.  All  this  is  very 
natural  if  the  difficulties  were  with  Jews.  It  is  anything  but  natural  if 
they  were  between  the  Roman  government  and  heathens.  Herod  con- 
sulted unscrupulously  his  own  interests,  not  those  of  Judaism.  He  and 
Agrippa  constituted  themselves,  in  public,  a  mutual-laudation  society,  to 
the  disgust,  doubtless,  of  not  a  few  among  their  auditors. 


164  JUDAISM  AT  KOME.  [CH.  VII. 

in  a  purely  political  contest  of  a  local  character,  Agrippa 
was  the  very  man  whom  he  needed  at  Kome,  and  with 
whose  services  there  he  could  not  at  this  juncture  have 
dispensed. 

Secondly :  the  heathens,  even  in  Asia,  must  have  under- 
stood a  blow  to  be  aimed  at  the  Jews,  for  they  immediately 
commenced  annoying  them  in  various  ways,  equally  as 
after  the  direct  action  against  them  in  the  years  A.  D.  19 
and  41.  This  we  can  learn  from  the  edicts  which  at  once 
became  necessary  for  repression  of  such  annoyance,^  — 

6*  Josephus,  who  consciously  or  ignorantly  misuses  these  documents  as 
evidence  that  the  Jews  had  been  honored  in  times  past,  arranges  them 
in  his  Antiquities  (16,  6,  2-7)  according  to  the  dignity  of  the  writer, 
beginning  with  Augustus.  For  the  reader's  convenience  I  will  endeavor 
to  number  them  chronologically  as  nearly  as  I  can.  1.  Agi'ippa  to  the 
Magistrates,  Senate,  and  People  of  the  Ephesians.  2.  Agrippa  to  the  Sen- 
ate, Magistrates,  and  People  of  Cyrene.  This  letter  alludes  to  a  statement 
of  the  Jews  that  Augustus  had  already  written  to  Flavins,  the  pretor  of 
Libya,  for  the  same  purpose,  which  letter  seems  not  to  have  produced  its 
full  effect.  3.  Csesar  to  Norbanus  Flaccus.  4.  Caius  Norbanus  Flaccus, 
proconsul,  to  the  Magistrates  of  the  Sardians,  stating  the  purport  of  the 
foregoing  letter  of  Cnesar.  5.  Julius  Antonius,  proconsul,  to  the  Magis- 
trates, Senate,  and  People  of  the  Ephesians.  This  Antony  was  doubtless 
that  son  of  Mark  Antony  who  was  consul  in  the  year  B.  c.  10.  The 
honors  obtained  for  him  would  naturally  follow  some  gradation,  the  lesser 
ones  earlier,  and  the  more  important  ones  afterward.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  that  he  was  proconsul  earlier  than  B.  c.  10.  But  he  alludes  in 
his  missive  to  the  acts  of  Agrippa,  who  left  Asia  b.  c.  13,  so  that  if  we 
place  his  proconsulship  in  B.  c.  12  or  11,  we  shall  at  least  have  better 
reasons  for  the  date  than  for  any  other  which  can  be  selected.  6.  A  de- 
cree of  Augustus  which  seems  to  be  a  general  one,  not  addressed  to  any 
pai'ticular  community,  though  a  copy  of  it  was  to  be  put  up  in  the  temple 
of  Augustus  at  Ancyra.  In  this  missive  Augustus  calls  himself  high- 
priest,  which  he  first  became  in  the  year  B.  c.  13  or  12.  If  we  may  judge 
from  the  fact  that  Josephus  gives  these  letters  and  decrees  in  one  connec- 
tion, the  probability  is  that  the  decree  of  Augustus  was  issued  witliin  a 
year  or  two  after  he  became  high-priest,  or  possibly  in  the  same  year. 

None  of  these  deciees  grant  the  Jews  any  new  privileges.  They  pro- 
tect them  against  theft  of  their  sacred  books  and  teinplc-offerings ;  against 
prohibition  of  their  assemblies  and  interference  with  their  observance  of 
the  Sabbath.    In  an  earlier  passage  {Antiq.  16,  2,  3-5)  Joseplius  narrates 


§  vin.]      CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  B.  C.  18-  A.  D.  2.       165 

edicts  similar  to  those  called  forth  by  the  years  above 
mentioned. 

If  we  now  seek  more  direct  manifestations  of  anti- 
Jewish  action  by  the  ruling  powers,  we  find  that  imme- 
diately after  expurgation  of  the  Senate,  access  of  any 
one  was  j)rohibited  to  the  monotheistic  or  Sibylline  writ- 
ings in  its  archives.^  Nothing  could  be  accomplished,  it 
seems,  against  the  same  class  of  writings,  outside,  without 
co-operation  of  the  Pontifex  Maximus.  But  this  officer 
was  Lepidus,  who,  to  the  chagrin  of  reactionaries,  re- 
tained his  position  determinedly,  in  spite  of  every  annoy- 
ance from  the  opposite  faction.^^  Friends  of  monotheism 
and  popular  rights  doubtless  counselled  him  to  persevere. 
When  he  died,  in  b.  c.  13  or  12,  Augustus  became  high- 
priest,  and  at  once  seized  and  burned  two  thousand 
copies  of  various  Sibylline  works.  No  one  was  allowed 
for  the  future  to  own  any  such  document.^^     Whether 

a  plea  made  before  Agrippa,  in  behalf  of  the  Jews,  by  an  orator  named 
Nicolaus,  whom  Herod  had  selected  for  that  pui'pose.  The  grievances 
specified  are  essentially  the  same,  and,  if  we  may  trust  Joseplius,  were 
not  denied  by  the  heathens.  To  a  reader  experienced  in  popular  disjjutcs 
and  collisions  there  will  be  ground  for  reflection  in  the  fact  that  Herod, 
an  ally  of  patricianism,  selected  this  orator.  Had  the  Jews  selected  their 
own  advocate,  he  might  have  made  demands  which  Agrippa  would  have 
had  no  wish  to  grant,  and  complaints  which  he  would  have  been  disin- 
clined to  rectify. 

^  "He  (Augustus)  commanded  that  the  Sibylline  utterances  ^irr) 
which  had  become  illegible  by  age  should  be  coi)ied  by  the  priests  with 
their  own  hands,  so  that  no  other  person  might  read  them."  — 
Dio  Cass.  54,  it.  This  order  of  course  must  be  understood  of  those  in 
public  custody.     It  was  given  in  B.  c.  18. 

^  Augustus  not  only  himself  treated  Lepidus  with  contumely,  but 
subjected  him  to  the  same  at  the  hands  of  his  satellites  (Dio  Cass.  54,  ir,). 
He  also  tried  by  legerdemain  to  have  him  omitted  from  the  reconstituted 
Senate,  probably  as  a  step  towards  declaring  him  disqualified  for  longer 
continuance  in  the  high-priesthood.     Dio  Cass.  54,  l"). 

^'  Augustus  "  after  having  assumed,  on  the  death  of  Lepidus,  the  office 
of  chief  priest,  which  he  had  never  ventured  to  take  away  from  him  while 
living,  collected  from  all  sides  and  burned  to  the  number  of  more  than 
two  thousand,  whatever  prophetic  books  of  Greek  and  Latin  origin  were 


166  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

the  penalty  of  death  for  disobedience  were  affixed  at  this 
or  at  a  later  date  cannot  certainly  be  determined.^  The 
reason  assigned  for  this  action  —  namely,  that  many  fol- 
lies gained  currency  through  the  established  reputation 
of  these  books  —  would  have  had  more  appearance  of 
being  the  true  one  if  access  to  the  senatorial  collec- 
tion, instead  of  being  denied,  had  been  previously  ren- 
dered easy,  so  that  outside  documents  might  be  corrected 
by  those  in  the  authorized  collection. 

The  initiatory  step  against  this  literature  in  B.  c.  18  or 

in  common  circulation  without  professed,  or  of  unreliable,  authorship,  nul- 
lis  vel  parum  idoneis  audoribus,  retaining  the  Sibylline  books  alone,  and 
of  these  only  a  selection,  which  he  deposited  in  two  gilded  chests  (or 
perhaps  bookcases)  in  the  basement  of  the  Palatine  Apollo."  —  Sueto- 
nius, August,  c.  31.  Tacitus  quotes  a  statem'^nt  made,  as  he  alleges,  by 
Tiberius  in  writing  to  the  Roman  Senate,  "that  because  many  follies 
WERE  CIRCULATED  Under  the  established  reputation,  sub  nomine  celcbri 
(of  the  Sibylline  books),  Augustus  had  decreed  a  day  within  which  they 
must  be  brought  to  the  city  pretor,  and  that  it  should  be  unlawful  for 
any  private  individual  to  have  them."  —  Tacitus,  Annals,  6,  12.  That 
follies  were  thus  circulated  is  plain.  That  these  were  made  a  pretext  for 
suppressing  the  books  is  natural.  That  Tiberius  cited  such  action  ap- 
provingly is  improbable,  for  he  was  a  stout  friend  of  free  discussion. 
Tacitus  (see  Note  G,  §  v.)  does  not  hesitate  at  falsely  attributing  to  him 
an  indorsement  of  aristocratic  hobbies  which  disgusted  him. 

^  "Through  the  inspiration  of  wicked  demons  [that  is,  of  heathen 
deities  who  feared  the  overthrow  of  their  power  from  the  teachings  con- 
tained in  these  books]  death  was  decreed  against  those  who  read  the 
books  of  Hystaspes  or  Sibylla,  or  the  Prophets,  that  by  fear  they  may 
turn  away  men  who  are  about  to  attain  to  a  knowledge  of  good  things 
and  keep  them  in  servitude  to  themselves.  But  this  they  are  not  able  to 
carry  out,  for  we  not  only  fearlessly  read  them,  but  offer  them,  as  you 
see,  to  your  examination,  knowing  that  they  will  prove  acceptable  to 
all."  —  Justin  Martyr,  Apolog.  1,  44.  If  the  decree  of  Augustus  was 
levelled  against  prophetical  books  in  general,  it  might  afterwards  be  con- 
strued to  include  the  Old  Testament  prophets,  whose  writings  Justin 
mentions  as  forbidden.  In  the  year  A.  D.  19,  however,  it  is  probable 
enough  that  a  perusal  of  the  Old  Testament  may  have  been  forbidden  to 
Gentiles  under  penalty  of  death.  A  Roman  certainly,  if  caught  reading 
it,  would  from  that  year  forward,  whenever  the  aristocracy  were  in  power, 
have  fared  hardly. 


§\Tii.]      CHKONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  B.  C.  18-A.  D.  2.         167 

17  was  accompanied  by  a  patrician  fraud  in  the  name  of 
Sibylla.  This  Greek  document,  elsewhere  described,^^ 
bears  evidence,  not  merely  of  non- Jewish,  but  of  anti- 
Jewish,  authorship,  and  corroborates  other  evidence  of  an 
anti- Jewish  movement  by  the  aristocracy.  Neither  they 
nor  Augustus,  whom  they  controlled,  showed  any  desire 
to  have  these  lines  secreted.  On  the  contrary,  Horace 
was  requested  to  translate  them  in  an  ode  to  be  publicly 
sung.  Sibylla,  when  favoring  reaction,  was  to  be  heard  ; 
when  teaching  monotheism  she  was  to  be  suppressed. 
A  comment  is  elsewhere  offered  '^  on  the  omission  from 
these  lines  of  any  attention  to  Saturn.  Considered  in 
connection  with  part  of  the  Erythraean  verses  and  with 
popular  misinterpretation  thereof,  this  omission  seems 
reactionary.  Some  modifications  by  Horace  of  the  trans- 
lated lines  show  that  he  was  not  wholly  subservient  to 
the  ruling  class,  and  perhaps  that  public  opinion  would 
not  permit  him  to  be  so."^  One  feature  of  his  Ode 
throws  remarkable  light  on  the  powerful  impression 
which  Jewish  anticipations  of  Rome's  impending  down- 
fall had  made  on  the  Roman  mind.  Horace,  a  court  poet, 
in  the  flush  of  a  patrician  victory,  when  the  object  was 
to  replace  the  national  or  patrician  gods  in  public  esti- 
mation, does  not  venture  to  claim  that  they,  if  properly 
propitiated,  will  preserve  to  Rome  her  present  power,  but 
merely  that  Italy  shall  remain  under  her  control. 

Another  blow  at  monotheism,  dealt,  as  already  men- 
tioned, so  soon  as  Augustus  acquired  the  chief-priesthood, 
was  an  order  that  every  senator,  before  proceeding  to 
senatorial  business,  should  offer  frankincense.'^^  Con- 
scientious monotheists  would,  under  such  a  rule,  be  de- 
barred from  attending  the  sittings  of  the  Senate.  This 
was  doubtless  one,  if  not  tlie  main  object  of  the  rule. 

^^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  vi. 

TO  Ibid. 

■^  Ibid. 

■^2  Dio  Cassius  (54,  30)  places  this  decree  in  the  year  B.  c.  12.  Sueto- 
nius  mentions  (Augustus,  c.  35)  that  the  offering  was  to  be  made  to  that 
god  in  whose  temple  they  were,  for  the  time  being,  assembled. 


168  JUDAISM  AT  EOME,  [CH.  VII. 

Its  only  other  snpposable  purpose  would  have  been  a 
show  of  respect,  which  no  one  really  felt,  for  the  old 
religion ;  and  this  show  was  unlikely  to  be  instituted 
unless  an  opposing  —  which  could  scarce  have  been 
aught  save  a  monotheistic  —  party  existed  in  the  Senate. 
During,  or  not  long  after,  these  six  years  (b.  c.  18  -  12) 
of  embittered  contest  is  the  most  probable  epoch  in  which 
to  locate  an  incident  in  the  life  of  Augustus,  preserved  to 
us  by  the  Lexicon  of  Suidas,  without  any  date.  "  Augus- 
tus, having  sacrificed,  asked  Pythia  [the  oracle  of  Apollo] 
who  should  reign  after  him;  and  [the  oracle]  an- 
swered :  — 

"  A  Hebrew  slave,  holding  control  over  the  Messed  gods,  orders  me 
To  leave  this  house  and  return  to  the  Underworld. 
Depart  in  silence,  therefore,  from  our  altars." '' 

The  custom  of  consulting  an  oracle,  if  we  may  rely  on 
Strabo's  remark  in  our  tenth  section,  must  by  this  time 
have  so  far  died  out,  that  the  action  of  Augustus  can  only 
be  regarded  as  an  effort  to  galvanize  the  appearance  of 
life  into  what  was  practically  dead.  The  answer  to  him 
may  have  been  contrived  by  a  zealous  religionist,  or  by 
some  stout-hearted  champion  of  popular  rights,  who  cared 
nothing  for  religion.  In  either  case,  the  response  must 
have  been  suggested  by  the  anti-monotheistic  procedures 
of  Augrustus,  and  the  individual  who  ventured  to  give 
it  must  have  anticipated  active  support  from  p)ublic 
opinion.     Compare  Note  A,  foot-note  124. 

A  monotheistic  response  which  the  Cohortatio  ad 
Grsecos  mentions  as  given  by  a  heathen  oracle  bears  no 
evidence,  as  in  the  foregoing  case,  of  virulent  antago- 
nism. It  may  belong  to  the  present  or  to  a  different 
period ;  but  hardly  to  any  date  after  the  introduction  of 

'^  The  reader  should  emphasize  the  word  slave  if  he  would  realize  the 
intended  contempt  for  heathen  deities.  Some  of  the  aristocracy,  in  their 
zeal  to  exclude  Tiberius,  the  friend  of  popular  rights,  may  have  prompted 
the  question  of  Augustus.  They  doubtless  preconcerted  an  answer,  for 
which  the  above  was  adroitly  substituted.  If  answers  were  in  writing,  as 
questions  seem  to  have  been  (see  Ch.  X.  note  53),  this  could  be  effected 
with  less  risk  than  if  they  were  viva  voce. 


§vin.]      CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  B.  C.  18-A.  D.  2.       169 

Christianity,  since,  if  so,  a  Christian  would  not  have 
quoted  it  approvingly.'^^ 

The  anti-monotheistic  efforts  of  the  reactionaries  dur- 
ing this  period  were  directed  in  more  ways  than  one 
towards  giving  an  appearance  of  life  to  heathenism. 
Augustus  "  RE-ESTABLISHED,  also,  some  of  the  ancient 
ceremonials  which  had  gradually  been  done  away,  as 
the  augury  for  [public]  safety ;  the  priesthood  of  Jupiter ; 
the  Lupercalia  ;  the  Secular  and  Compitalician  games."  ''^ 
How  little  all  this  availed  towards  making  men  prefer 
heathenism  to  monotheism  will  be  seen  in  the  next  and 
in  almost  each  succeeding  period. 

The  cause  of  monotheism  and  that  of  popular  rights 
appear  in  this,  as  in  other  periods,  to  have  been  conjoined 
with  that  of  morality.  It  is,  of  course,  probable  that 
either  of  these  two  allies  found  advocates  whose  morality 
was  below,  or  not  above,  the  average.  Yet  among  mono- 
theists  morality  was  an  object  of  culture,  and  in  the 
popular  party  it  met  with  less  ridicule  and  more  active 
support  tlian  among  partisans  of  aristocracy.  The  court 
circle,  in  which  writings  such  as  some  of  Horace's  circu- 
lated, must  have  been  devoid  of  shame.  Augustus, 
though  not  a  debauchee,  was  not  a  moralist,  nor,  at  this 
period  certainly,  did  his  influence  favor  morality.  In 
B.  c.  18  he  "  ordained  rather  severe  penalties  for  unmar- 
ried men  and  women  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  established 
rewards  for  marriage  and  the  production  of  children."  ''^ 

74  "When  some  one,  according  to  your  own  (i.  e.  heathen)  accounts, 
asked  from  one  of  your  own  oracles,  '  What  men  had  become  recognizers 
of  God,'  you  yourselves  say  that  the  oracle  responded:  — 

'  Only  Chaldeans  and  Hebrews  have  obtained  wisdom, 
Reverencing  in  purity  God  the  self-born  king.'  " 

Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  c.  11  ;  compare  c.  24. 
Unless  the  word  translated  mid  mean  cvc7i  or  namely,  this  would  imply 
that  Chaldeans  had  adopted  monotheism. 

'^  Suetonius,  Augustus,  c.  31.     The  secular  games  took  place,  as  we 

have  seen,  in  b.  c.  17.     The  priesthood  of  Jupiter,  which  had  died  out 

in  B.  c.  87,  seems,  from  Dio  Cassius  (54,  36)  to  have  been  re-established  in 

B.  c.  11.    Among  the  priesthoods  of  individual  gods  it  was  the  highest. 

'^  Dio  Cass.  54,  ig. 


170  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

This  law,  however,  must  have  impeded,  rather  than  aided, 
a  healthy  moral  sentiment."'  Its  provisions  showed  that 
its  framers  appreciated  neither  marriage  nor  morality, 
and  the  law  itself  strikingly  illustrates  reactionary  views 
on  these  subjects.  Complaint  was  made  in  the  Senate 
over  the  prevailing  dissoluteness  among  women  and  young 
men  as  a  preventive  to  marriage,  and  Augustus  was 
urged  to  rectify  this  also.  The  remarks,  Dio  tells  us, 
were  intended  as  a  reflection  on  his  conduct.  He  at  first 
replied,  that  "  what  was  most  needful  had  already  been 
ENACTED,  and  the  remainder  could  not  be  in  like  manner 
surrendered  [to  legal  supervision  ?]."  '^  Human  experi- 
ence has  evinced  that  legislation  can  at  best  but  mitigate, 
not  obviate,  immorality.  The  first  of  the  above  two 
statements  was,  however,  incorrect,  and  Augustus,  when 
pressed,  showed  that  he  was  talking  at  random.'^ 

§  IX.     Schools  of  Law. 

The  preceding  contest  gave  rise,  or  prominence,  to  two 
schools  of  law  which  confronted  each  other  for  at  least 
a  century  and  a  half,  and  more  probably  for  three  centu- 

"  The  law  affixed  penalties  to  a  divorced  woman  if  she  remained  un- 
married more  than  six  months  ;  also  to  a  widow  if  slie  remained  unmar- 
ried more  than  a  year.  A  legacy  to  a  bachelor  was  void  unless  he  qualified 
himself  for  its  acceptance  by  getting  married  within  one  hundred  days. 
These  provisions  were  somewhat  mitigated  in  A.  D.  9,  by  an  extension  of 
time.  See  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  692,  col.  1,  under  Lex  Julia  and 
Lex  Papia  'Poppcca.  The  law  seems  to  have  ignored  affection,  nuitual 
respect,  and  moral  sense  as  a  basis  for  maniage,  and  to  have  considered 
it  MERELY  with  reference  to  increase  of  population. 

'''^  Dio  Cass.  54,  k;. 

T3  "Being  pressed,  he  said,  'You  ought  to  admonish  and  command 
your  wives  what  you  think  proper,  AS  I  do.'  Hearing  this  they  urged 
him  the  more,  wishing  to  learn  the  admonitions  which  he  professed  to 
have  given  Livia  ;  and  he,  though  against  his  will,  stated  something  con- 
cerning dress  and  other  ornamentation,  and  concerning  going  out  and 
womanly  modesty,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  his  statements  were  not 
believed."  — Dio  Cass.  54,  v\.  Moralists  who  most  appreciated  social 
corruption  were  least  liki'ly  to  find  relief  in  rendering  Augustus  ridiculous, 
however  natural  such  action  may  have  been  in  political  opponents. 


§ix.]  SCHOOLS   OF  LAW.  171 

ries,  until  Christianity  became  dominant.^*'  These  claim  a 
slight  interruption  in  our  chronological  narrative.  Capito, 
favored  by  Augustus,  was  the  advocate  of  the  privileged 
classes,  and  therefore  of  Ancient  Usage ;  Labeo  upheld 
equity  and  human  rights.  The  verdict  of  posterity  con- 
cerning them  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  state- 
ments :  "  Notwithstanding  the  great  legal  reputation  of 
Capito,  not  a  single  p^Lre  extract  from  any  of  his  works 
occurs  in  the  Digest,  though  there  are  a  few  quotations 
from  him  at  second  hand."  ^^  "  The  extracts  from  Labeo 
in  the  Digest  occupy  about  twelve  pages  [as  printed]  in 
Hommel's  Palingcncsia  Fandcctarum.  They  are  sixty  in 
number.  But  the  name  of  Labeo  occurs  in  other  passages 
of  the  Digest  no  fewer  than  five  hundred  and  forty-one 
times."  ^^  J.  T.  Graves,  author  of  articles  on  Capito  and 
Labeo,  says  that  "  the  conclusions  of  Capito's  school 
seem,  in  a  majority  of  instances,  to  have  prevailed  in 
practice."  ^^  This,  in  consideration  of  what  has  already 
been  said,  can  hardly  mean  more  than  that,  during  the 
influence  of  a  heatlien  aristocracy  and  under  their  pet 
emperors,  the  school  of  ancient  usage  bore  sway.     When 

^  "After  him  (Tubero)  Anteius  Capito  .  .  .  and  Antistius  Labeo  were 
regarded  as  the  highest  authorities.  .  ,  .  These  two  first  established  what 
might  be  called  different  schools  ;  for  Anteius  Capito  adhered  persistently 
to  tradition  ;  Labeo,  by  mental  constitution,  ingenii  qualitate,  and  by 
the  confidence  which  his  learning  inspired,  —  for  he  had  studied  largely 
outside  of  his  profession,  — commenced  many  innovations." — Pompo- 
nius,  quoted  in  Digest  1,  2,  2,  47.  ' '  There  is  no  proof  that  there  was 
ever  a  distinct  middle  school."  —  Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  VoL  1,  p.  601, 
col.  2.  To  the  school  of  Capito  belonged  Masurius  Sabinus,  Caius 
Cassius  Longinus,  Cselius  Sabinus,  Priscus  Javolenus,  Aburnus  Valens, 
Tuscianus,  and  Julianus.  To  that  of  Labeo  belonged  Nerva  (the  father), 
Proculus,  Nerva  (the  son),  another  Longinus,  Pegasus,  Cclsus  (the 
father),  Celsus  (the  son),  and  Priscus  Neratius.  The  friendship  of  the 
elder  Nerva  for  Tiberius  implies  that  he  adhered  to,  not,  as  some  suppose 
(Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  Vol.  1,  p.  601,  col.  2),  that  he  .swerved  from  the 
school  of  Labeo.     For  the  above  list,  see  Digest   1,  2,  2,  47. 

81  Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  Vol.  1,  p.  600,  col.  1. 

8^  Same  work,  Vol.  2,  p.  693,  col.  1. 

83  Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  Vol.  1,  pp.  601,  602. 


172  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  CH.  VII. 

heathenism  was  overthrown,  Capito  was  soon  neglected. 
He  seems — judging  from  the  incidents  recorded  in  Taci- 
tus —  to  have  been  mentally  and  morally  a  man  of  small 
calibre,^*  though  party  spirit,  correctly  or  incorrectly,  gave 
him  the  credit  of  great  learning. 

Labeo's  methodical  industry,  added  to  his  other  quali- 
fications, must  have  rendered  him  invaluable  to  the  ad- 
vocates of  legal  reform.^^  The  remark  of  Horace,  "  more 
crazy  than  Laheo,''  ^^  shows  how  he  was  viewed  by  patri- 
cian conservatives. 

Neither  Hadrian  nor  his  successor,  Antoninus  Pius,  were 
devotees  of  the  privileged  classes.^^     Possibly  the  distinc- 

^  Ennius,  a  Roman  kniglit,  was  charged  in  A.  D.  22  with  treason, 
because  he  had  melted  a  silver  statue  of  Tiberius.  The  justice  and  good 
sense  of  the  latter  forbade  his  prosecution.  Capito  treated  the  emperor's 
refusal  as  an  interference  with  senatorial  rights  and  a  permission  for  crime 
against  the  republic.  Tacitus,  after  narrating  these  circumstances,  adds 
that :  "  Capito's  infamy  [in  this]  attracted  more  attention,  because,  versed 
as  he  was  in  law  human  and  divine,  he  dehonestavisset  had  brought  re- 
proach upon  an  eminent  public  [that  is,  upon  the  aristocracy]  and  on  the 
bonus  artcs  professional  skill  of  his  house  [or  in  other  words,  of  himself]." 
—  Annals,  3,  70.  This  means  that  the  reactionai'ies  treated  Capito's  over- 
zeal  as  a  political  blunder  which  had  cost  standing  to  them  and  prestige 
to  him. 

^  "  Labeo  .  .  .  divided  tlie  year  so  that  he  should  be  six  months  with 
his  students  at  Rome  and  for  six  months  be  absent  [in  the  country]  de- 
voting himself  to  writing  books."  —  Digest.  1,  2,  47. 

^^  If  Horace,  as  some  think,  wrote  his  Satire  before  Labeo  was  of  an 
age  to  attract  attention,  he  may  have  subsequently  retouched  it.  He 
alludes  evidently  to  the  great  reformer.  "  If  any  one  should  crucify  his 
slave  because,  when  ordered  to  take  his  plate  away,  he  had  tasted  the 
half-eaten  fishes  and  half-cold  sauce,  [such  a  one],  though  more  insane 
than  Labeo,  would  be  reckoned  among  .sane  men."  — Sat.  1,  3,  80-83, 
Atrocities  under  Trajan  caused  under  Hadrian  a  much  needed  transfer  of 
death-power  from  masters  (see  Ch.  X.  note  131)  to  the  courts. 

^  Hadrian  (cp.  p.  325)  decided  that  decisions  of  jurists  "should  have 
the  force  of  law,  provided  the  respondents  all  agreed  in  their  answers  ; 
but  if  they  differed  the  judge  was  at  liberty  to  adhere  to  whichever 
opinion  he  preferred."  —  Sajidais,  Lit rodud.  to  Institutes  uf  JiLstinian, 
p.  18.     Cp.  Gaius,  1,  7,  Boecking's  edit.  p.  3. 


§ix.]  SCHOOLS   OF  LAW.  173 

tioii  of  schools  became  less  prominent  under  the  latter. 
If  so,  the  aristocracy  must  liave  found  it  more  difficult  to 
regain  control  of  legal  decisions  than  of  political  power. 
Pomponius,  however,  lived  near  the  middle  of  the  second 
century,  and  his  list,  already  given,  would  naturally  ter- 
minate with  jurists  of  the  preceding  generation.  Legal 
decisions  were  certainly  in  a  state  of  change  until  after 
Christianity  had  gained  the  ascendency ,^^  and  it  is  likely 
that  heathen  views  found  legal  defenders  so  long  as  hea- 
thenism had  power. 

In  effecting  legal  reform  the  chief  aid  afforded  by 
monotheism  must  have  been  through  the  strength  which 
it  imparted  to  the  individual  and  public  conscience,  and 
through  the  feeling  of  human  brotherhood  wdiich  it  in- 
spired. Yet  aside  from  this,  the  influence  of  Judaism 
upon  the  Greek  Stoics  seems  to  have  reacted  upon  Eoman 
law.^^    There  were  perhaps  two  reasons  for  this.    Firstly : 

^  "  If  we  compare  the  Institutes  of  Justinian  with  those  of  Gaius,  we 
find  changes  in  the  law  of  marriagp,  in  that  of  succession,  and  in  many 
other  branches  of  law,  in  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognize  the  spirit 
of  humanity  and  reverence  for  natural  ties  which  Christianity  had  in- 
spired."—  Sandars,  Introdud.  to  Institutes  of  Justinian,  p.  21. 

89  "  By  fav  the  most  important  addition  to  the  system  of  Roman  law 
which  the  jurists  introduced  from  [Judaism  mingled  loith  ?]  Greek  philos- 
ophy was  the  conception  of  the  lex  natiirce.  We  learn  from  the  writings 
of  Cicero  whence  this  conception  came,  and  what  was  understood  by  it. 
It  came  from  the  Stoics,  and  especially  from  Chrysippus.  By  natura, 
for  which  Cicero  sometimes  substitutes  mundus,  was  meant  the  universe 
of  things,  and  this  universe  the  Stoics  declared  to  be  guided  by  reason. 
...  By  hx  naturoi,  therefore,  was  meant  primarily  the  determining 
force  of  the  universe,  a  force  inherent  in  the  universe  by  its  constitution 
[Jex  est  naturae,  vis).  But  man  has  reason,  and  as  reason  cannot  be  two- 
fold, the  ratio  of  the  universe  must  be  the  same  as  the  ratio  of  man,  and 
the  lex  naturae  will  be  the  law  by  which  the  actions  of  man  are  to  be 
guided,  as  well  as  the  law  directing  the  universe.  Virtue,  or  moral  ex- 
cellence, may  be  described  as  living  either  in  accordance  with  reason,  or 
with  the  law  of  the  universe.  These  notions  worked  themselves  into 
Roman  law,  and  the  practical  shape  they  took  was  that  morality,  so  far 
as  it  could  come  within  the  scope  of  judges,  was  regarded  as  enjoined  by 
law.  .  .  .  When  a  rigid  adherence  to  the  doctrines  of  the  jus  civile  threat- 


174  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

among  opponents  of  long-established  error  there  are 
always  some  who  lay  more  stress  on  opinions  of  a  re- 
putedly learned  foreigner  than  on  the  carefully  exercised 
judgments  of  themselves  and  neighbors.  Again  :  there 
is  a  disposition  in  some  minds  to  support  new  views  by 
clothing  them  in  established  phraseology.  This  class 
must  have  been  thankful  for  the  Stoic  phrase  "  Law  of 
[universal]  Nature."  It  enabled  them  when  opposing 
legal  abominations  to  regard  themselves  as  upholding,  not 
as  overturning,  established  law.^^  They  did  not  per- 
ceive that  in  their  mouths  the  phrase  lacked  meaning.^^ 


ened  to  do  a  moral  wrong,  and  produce  a  result  that  was  not  equitable, 
then  the  lex  naturce  was  supposed  to  operate,  and  tlie  pretor,  in  accord- 
ance with  its  dictates,  provided  a  remedy  by  means  of  the  pliant  forms 
of  the  pretorian  actions.  Gradually  the  cases,  as  well  as  the  modes  in 
which  he  would  thus  interfere,  grew  more  and  more  certain  and  recog- 
nized, and  thus  a  body  of  equitable  princijiles  was  introduced  into  the 
Eoman  law.  The  two  great  agents  in  modifying  and  extending  the  old, 
rigid,  narrow  system  of  the  jus  civile  were  thus  the  jus  gentium  and  the 
lex  naturce  ;  that  is,  generalizations  from  the  legal  system  of  other  na- 
tions, and  morality  looked  on  according  to  the  philosophy  of  the  Stoics 
as  sanctioned  by  a  law.  .  .  .  The  jibs  gentium  and  lex  naturce  were  each 
the  complement  of  the  other,  and  were  often  looked  on  by  the  jurists  as 
making  one  whole,  to  which  the  term  ^us  (/e«i«<m  was  generally  applied." 
—  Sandars  (except  the  insertion  in  brackets),  Introduct.  to  Institutes 
of  Justinian,  pp.  13,  14.  Sandars  refers  to  Cicero,  Dc  Lecj.  1,  C-12  ;  De 
Nat.  Bear.  1,  14  ;  2,  14,  31 ;  Be  Fin.  4,  7. 

^  "  Law  is  the  Supreme  Reason  dwelling  in  nature  which  orders 
what  is  proper  to  be  done  and  prohibits  the  contrary."  —  Cicero,  Z)e 
Legihus,  1,  6. 

'1  A  Stoic,  while  believing  in  a  moral  intelligence  which  animated  and 
ruled  the  universe,  could  by  the  Lex  Naturm,  Law  of  [univehsal]  Na- 
ture, or,'  as  Cicero  sometimes  words  it.  Lex  Mundi,  Law  of  the  Uni- 
verse, mean  approximately  what  a  Jew  would  have  understood  by  the 
Will  of  God.  To  other  heathens,  who  deemed  nature  or  the  universe 
inanimate,  its  decisions  on  legal  or  moral  questions  must  have  been  im- 
aginary. Much  of  what  was  good  in  civil  law,  though  expressed  in  Latin, 
originated  and  was  first  promulgated  in  monotheistic  Greek -sjjcuking 
lands. 


§x.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  2-14.  175 

§  X.   A.  D.  2-14.      Augustus  recedes  from   %dtra-Patri- 
cianism. 

The  year  in  which  our  last  chronological  section  ended 
and  the  present  one  begins  witnessed  the  first  step  of 
Augustus  towards  retreating  out  of  reactionary  influence. 
His  emancipation,  for  a  time  at  least,  was  but  j)artial. 
Eight  years  before  this  date  Tiberius  had  been  —  infor- 
mally, perhaps — banished,  and  had  gone  to  Khodes.  There 
he  seems  to  have  lived  a  quiet  life  of  self-improvement, 
attending  lectures,  visiting  the  sick,  and  sometimes  recon- 
ciling those  who  had  quarrelled.  Augustus,  who  had  felt 
the  need  of  a  thoughtful,  unselfish  adviser,  recalled  him 
in  A.  D.  2,  and  though  this  could  not  reverse  what  patri- 
cianism  had  accomplished,  yet  it  mitigated  the  consequent 
evils. 

In  scrutinizing  the  effect  thus  far  produced  upon  the 
community  by  efforts  at  reaction,  we  shall  find  that 
monotheism,  if  excluded  from  the  Senate,  must,  outside 
of  that  body,  have  had  strong  hold  on  the  upper  as  well 
as  the  common  classes.  It  would  be  unsafe  to  infer  that 
every  one  who  —  even  without  political  motive  —  paid 
his  devotions  at  Jerusalem  was  a  monotheist.  Yet,  if 
Augustus  thanked  his  grandson  for  not  doing  so,^^  we  can 
feel  assured  that  monotheism  commanded  the  belief  of 
many,  and  the  respect  of  still  more,  among  the  higher 
classes.  Augustus  would  hardly  have  commended  in  his 
grandson  a  course  which  was  but  the  common,  or  univer- 
sal, one  in  the  class  to  which  he  belonged. 

A  passage  of  Strabo,  published  in  this  epoch,  tells  us : 
"  Soothsaying  of  all  kinds,  and  oracles,  were  especially 
honored  by  the  ancients,  but  are  now  oppressed  by 
much  contempt,  the  Eomans  being  satisfied  with  the 
oracles  of  Sibylla  and  Etruscan  divinations.  .  .  .  Where- 
fore the  Oracle  of  Amnion  has  nearly  died  out."  ^^     In 

^  Suetonius,  Augustus,  c.  93,  quoted  in  Ch.  V.  note  130.  This  jour- 
ney must  have  taken  place  from  somewhere  in  B.  c.  1  to  A.  D.  4.  In  the 
former  year  Caius  went  to  Asia.     In  February  of  the  latter  year  he  died. 

^  Strabo,  Geographica,  17,  1,  43;  pp.  1134,  1135,  edit.  Meineke. 


176  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

determining  whether  this  tendency  were  chiefly  owing  to 
general  enlightenment,  or  to  the  progress  of  monotheism, 
we  can  derive  some  light  from  the  leaders  of  the  conser- 
vative, or  aristocratic  party,  who,  as  will  be  found  under 
A.  D.  41,  attribute  it  to  the  progress  of  "  Foreign  Eites," 
that  is,  of  Judaism.  The  probability  is,  that,  even  when 
Strabo  wrote,  the  manifestations  of  reverence  for  Etruscan 
divination  were  confined  to  the  conservative,  and  those 
of  reverence  for  Sibylline  teaching  to  the  progressive, 
party. 

Still  another  incident  helps  to  indicate  the  point  at 
which  the  contest  between  monotheism  and  heathenism 
had  arrived.  In  a.  D.  5  a  Vestal  Virgin  was  to  be  selected. 
High  honors  belonged  to  the  office,  and  yet  parents  op- 
posed the  placing  of  their  daughters  on  the  list  of  candi- 
dates.^ Augustus  was  vehement  to  no  purpose  in  trying 
to  change  their  resolution,  and  the  office  had  to  be  opened 
to  women  whose  parents  had  once  been  slaves.^"  At  a 
later  date  ultra  conservatives  among  the  aristocracy  be- 
came more  desperate  in  their  support  of  heathen  recol- 
lections, and  of  departing  institutions ;  for  their  action 
can  hardly  be  termed  either  a  result  or  a  support  of 
heathen  belief. 

If  we  now  turn  to  Livy,  whose  history  belongs  approx- 
imately to  this  date,^^  we  shall  find  ground  to  query 
whether  some  phraseology  which  he  uses,  or  quotes,  did 
not  result  from  Jewish  influences.     Before  citing  it,  an 

^  Augustus  "  increased  not  only  the  number  and  dignity  of  the  ])riests, 
but  also  their  emoluments,  especially  of  the  Vestal  Virgins.  And  when 
in  the  place  of  one  who  had  died  another  was  to  be  taken,  and  many 
made  interest  that  their  daughters'  names  should  not  be  subjected  to  the 
[chance  of]  drawing,  he  swore  that  if  the  age  of  any  one  among  his 
granddaughters  were  sufficient,  he  would  offer  her."  —  Suetonius,  Au- 
gustus, c.  31. 

9*  "  And  since  the  really  well-born  were  unwilling  to  give  their  daugh- 
ters for  the  priesthood  of  Vesta,  a  law  was  enacted  tliat  the  daugliters  of 
freed  persons  might  hold  that  office." —  Dio  Cass.  55,  12. 

^  Livy  was  born  in  B.  c.  59,  and  died  in  a.  «.  17.  His  history  must 
have  been  linished  after  9  B.  c,  as  it  came  down  to  the  death  of 
Drusus, 


§x.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  2-14.  177 

explanation  is  requisite.  Ancient  writers  often  put  into 
the  mouth  of  real  or  supposed  speakers  arguments  appo- 
site to,  or  used  by,  that  side  which  they  are  regarded  as 
representing,  —  a  custom  which  has  not  totally  died  out 
in  the  present  century.^"  In  accordance  with  this  custom, 
Livy  has  given  us  the  speech  of  a  patrician  lady  named 
Virginia.  She  had  married  a  plebeian,  and  the  patrician 
ladies  on  that  account  excluded  her,  in  B.  c.  296,  from 
some  sacred  rites.  Her  dispute  with  them,  and  her  sub- 
sequent address  to  plebeian  women,  can  hardly  have  been 
matter  of  record,  but  Livy  represents  her,  in  the  course 
of  the  former,  as  calling  herself  the  "  wife  of  one  hus- 
band," ^^  uni  niqjtum.    As  the  earliest  Christian  assemblies 


9"  "  There  will  be  found,  in  the  course  of  this  history,  several  discourses 
of  a  certain  length.  Those  I  have  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  different 
speakers  have  really  been  pronounced  by  them,  and  upon  those  very  oc- 
casions which  are  treated  of  in  the  work.  I  should,  however,  mention, 
that  I  have  sometimes  made  a  single  orator  say  what  has  been  said 
IN  SUBSTANCE  BY  OTHERS  OF  THE  SAME  PARTY.  Sometimes,  also,  but 
rarely,  using  the  liberty  granted  in  all  times  to  historians,  I  have  ven- 
tured to  ADD  A  SMALL  NUMBER  OF  PHRASES,  which  appeared  to  me  to 
coincide  perfectly  with  the  sense  of  the  orator  and  proper  to  enforce  his 
opinion ;  this  has  appeared  especially  in  the  two  discourses  pronounced 
before  Congress,  for  and  against  independence,  by  Richard  Henry  Lee  and 
John  Dickinson."  — Botta,  IFar  of  Indcjycndence,  trans,  by  Otis,  p.  v; 
N.  Haven  edit.  1838. 

Smyth,  in  his  Lectures  on  Modern  History  (Vol.  1,  pp.  134-138,  Am. 
edit.),  comments  on  the  fabrication  of  speeches  by  Hume  and  by  Sir  J. 
Hayward,  neither  of  whom  puts  his  readers  on  their  guard,  as  does  Botta, 
by  stating  what  he  had  been  doing.  Botta's  plan  is  a  well-intentioned 
mistake.  The  action  of  Hume  and  Sir  J.  Hayward  is  more  culpable, 
whatever  be  the  palliation  sought  for  it  in  customs  of  earlier  historians. 
Yet  even  their  conduct  —  fabricating  .speeches  to  convey  what  they 
DEEMED  essentially  true  —  must  not  be  confounded  with  that  of  Tacitus, 
Philo,  and  others,  whose  fabricated  speeches  and  conversations  are  in- 
tended to  make  readers  believe  what  they  themselves  knew  to  be  false. 
Compare  in  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  123. 

*  Virginia,  according  to  the  narrative,  proceeded,  after  her  exclusion, 
to  set  apart  a  portion  of  her  own  premises,  on  which  she  built  an  altar  to 
"Plebeian  Chastity."  Then,  calling  together  plebeian  matrons,  she 
8*  i^ 


178  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

were  apparently  modelled  after  the  Jewish  synagogues, 
Paul's  language  justifies  the  supposition  that  divorced 
persons  were  not  assigned  to  prominent  positions  in  the 
religious  assemblies  of  the  Jews.^^ 

If  the  words  of  Livy  were  copied  from  documents  dating 
three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  they  would  repre- 
sent, doubtless,  ideas  which  originated  with  heathens.  If, 
like  many  of  his  narratives,  they  represent  traditions  of 
his  own  time  embellished  by  himself,  they  probably  result 
from  Jewish  views,  which  had  been  adopted  by  the  more 
moral  among  the  Romans.  The  latter  remark  does  not 
deny  to  the  lieathens  moral  sense,  nor,  to  a  portion  of 
them,  appreciation  for  conjugal  fidelity.  But  their  gods 
were  not  supposed  to  take  interest  in  moral  wrongs,  unless 
committed  against  themselves  or  their  favorites. 

The  question  deserves  investigation  by  students  either 
of  antiquity  or  of  man's  moral  history,  whether  the  terms 
"  husband  of  one  wife  "  and  "  wife  of  one  husband  "  can 
be  traced  in  Roman  literature  to  an  earlier  date  than  that 
of  Jewish  influence.^"*^ 

addressed  them  as  follows  :  "I  dedicate  this  altar  to  '  Plebeian  Chastity,' 
and  exhort  you,  that,  as  the  men  in  this  state  vie  with  each  other  in 
bravery,  the  matrons  should,  in  like  manner,  vie  in  chastity;  and  that 
you  should  exert  yourselves  so  that  this  altar  may,  if  possible,  be  re- 
garded as  having  a  holier  worship  and  from  chaster  persons  than  that 
one  [of  Patrician  Chastity]."  Livy  continues :  "The  religious  services 
of  this  altar  were  almost  the  same  as  those  of  that  older  one ;  so  that  no 
one  save  a  matron  of  approved  chastity,  the  wife  of  one  husband,  could 
sacrifice  at  it." — Livy,  10,  -2.3. 

99  '<  for  this  object  I  left  thee  in  Crete  that  .  .  .  thou  shouldst  appoint 
elders  in  every  city  ...  if  any  one  is  blameless,  the  husband  of  one 
wife  ...  for  an  overseer,  being  God's  steward,  should  be  blameless." 
^  Titus,  1, .')  -  7.  "An  overseer  should  be  blameless,  the  husband  of 
one  wife."  —  1  Tim.  3,  2.  "  Let  a  woman  be  deemed  a  widow  [entitled 
to  public  support]  when  not  less  than  sixty  years  old,  the  wife  of  one 
husband.''  — 1  Tim.  5,  9. 

^"^  In  the  Lexicon  of  Facciolati  and  Forcellini,  under  the  word  pro- 
nubus,  the  brideswoman  at  a  marriage  is  said,  in  one  citation,  to  have 
been  customarily  the  wife  of  one  husband.  But  of  the  two  references, 
one  is  to  Tertullian,  two  centuries  after  the  Christian  era.     Of  the  other, 


§xi.  CHKONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  14-18.  179 


§  XI.    A.  D.  14:- 18.     Tiberius  Emperor.    Pairieian  Steps 
towards  Rebellion. 

In  A.  D.  14  Augustus  died,  after  selecting  Tiberius  as 
his  successor.  The  selection  was  prompted  hy  his  appre- 
ciation of  the  latter,  and  amounted  to  a  confession  of 
having  been  misled  by  his  previous  surrounders.  Tiberius 
entered  on  his  duties  while  an  adverse  faction  controlled 
both  the  Senate  and  most  of  the  public  offices.  In  more 
than  one  instance  the  Senate  acted  in  opposition  to  him. 
Its  leaders  deified  Augustus  promptly  after  his  death  in 
the  hope,  apparently,  of  rendering  it  sacrilegious  for  Ti- 
berius to  undo  any  of  the  reaction  which  they  had  effected 
through  his  step-father.^*^^  His  position  was  additionally 
embarrassed  by  the  fact  that  his  mother  sympathized 
with  the  aristocratic  faction,  and,  through  defects  in  her 

"Fest.  Varr.  apud  Serv.  ad  ^n.  4,  loc,"  I  have  not  means  to  determine 
the  date,  hut  see  no  reason  for  regarding  it  as  earlier  than  Livy. 

The  office  of  Flamen  Dialis,  priest  of  Jupiter,  died  out  in  B.  c.  87, 
and  was  revived  in  b.  c.  11,  by  Augustus.  Its  incumbent,  according  to 
Smith,  Z)ic<.  of  Antiquities,  p.  541,  col.  1,  "could  not  marry  a  second 
time.  Hence,  since  her  [his  wife's]  assistance  was  essential  to  the  per- 
formance of  certain  ordinances,  a  divorce  was  not  permitted,  and  if  she 
died,  the  Dialis  was  obliged  to  resign."  If  the  first  of  these  statements 
means  that  he  must  be  living  with  his  first  wife  when  appointed  to  office, 
—  an  idea  not  necessarily  iinplied  in  Aulus  Gellius,  10,15, — then  the 
date  when  this  view  originated  would  become  a  matter  of  interest.  If 
first  established  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  it  would  tend  to  show  that  the 
leader  of  heathenism  could  not,  in  his  effort  to  re-establish  heathen  rites, 
ignore  the  Jewish  idea  of  connection  between  morality  and  the  holding 
of  a  prominent  religious  position. 

^''1  How  immediately  the  deification  of  Augustus  was  used  for  the  pur- 
pose of  tying  his  successor's  hands  may  be  inferrred  from  the  following. 
Already  in  A.  d.  14  (Tac.  An.  1,  .'m)  some  public  players  caused  a  disturb- 
ance, which  broke  oirt  more  violently,  and  witli  considerable  loss  of  life, 
in  A.  D.  15.  Some  wished  to  have  the  players  whipped.  The  opposite 
view  prevailed,  "because  the  god  Augustus  had  given  his  opinion  that 
players  were  exempt  from  whipping,  nor  would  it  be  religiously  law- 
ful for  Tiberius  to  contravene  his  decisions."  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  77. 
Compare  in  Ch.  I.  note  9,  citation  from  Dio  Cassius. 


180  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  VII. 

character  of  which  they  knew  how  to  avail  themselves, 
became  their  tool  to  counteract  his  best  efforts. 

The  serious  events  of  this  period  are  clearly  connected 
with  those  in  the  next  chapter.  That  this  connection 
may  not  be  interrupted,  a  piece  of  party  pleasantry  will 
first  be  narrated. 

In  A.  D.  15  a  destructive  inundation  of  the  Tiber  gave 
occasion  to  party  humorousness.  Asinius  Gallus  moved  a 
consultation  of  Sibylline  books.  His  political  relations  ^^^ 
imply  that  his  meaning  must  have  been  somewhat  as 
follows  :  "  You  reactionaries  loudly  advocate  adherence  to 
ancient  usage.  For  once  you  shall  have  co-operation 
from  me.  Among  old  customs  none  was  ever  better  es- 
tablished than  a  consultation  of  Sibylline  books  in  time 
of  physical  calamity.  I  move,  as  a  means  of  allaying 
THE  Tiber,  that  we  thoroughly  scrutinize  the  monotheistic 
teachings,  which  you  secrete  so  carefully."  The  motion 
was  admirably  calculated  for  placing  reactionaries  in  a 
ludicrous  light.  Assent  to  it  would  render  them  ridicu- 
lous ;  opposition  would  prove  them  insincere.  Those 
against  whom  it  was  aimed  had  been,  and  continued  to 
be,  enemies  of  Tiberius.  Yet  he  did  not  join  in  the  jest 
at  their  expense,  and  must  even  have  discouraged  any 
pressing  of  tlie  motion  made  by  his  friend  Gallus.^*^^    The 


^'^2  Gallus  at  a  later  period  needed  and  received  from  Tiberius  a  guard, 
without  which  his  life  would  have  been  in  danger  from  the  reactionaries. 
His  father  —  of  the  anti-senatorial  faction,  and  founder  of  the  first  pub- 
lic library  at  Rome  —  was  the  Pollio  to  whom  Virgil  addressed  his  half- 
messianic  Eclogue,  and  with  whom,  according  to  Josephus,  Antiq.  15, 
10,  1,  the  young  Jewish  princes,  sons  of  Herod,  abode  while  in  Rome. 

^'^"  "  Tiberius  opposed  (the  motion  of  Gallus)  as  if  desirous  to  conceal 
things  divine  and  human."  — Tacitus,  yhmals,  1,  70.  Tlie  phraseology 
in  which  this  is  couched  might  be  understood  as  the  language  of  super- 
stition. It  is  far  more  probably  a  dexterous  effort  of  the  historian  to 
withdraw  attention  from  the  awkward  predicament  of  the  conservative 
party.  If  they  supported  a  motion  to  consult  the  Sibylline  Books  as  a 
preventive  against  overflow  of  the  Tiber  they  must  have  rendered  them- 
selves a  laughing-stock  for  the  community,  and  have  gratified  their  op- 
ponents by  investigation  into  a  storehouse  of  anti-heathen  teaching.     If 


§xi.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  14-18.  181 

Senate  entrusted  to  a  committee  of  two,  Anteius  Capito 
and  Lucius  Arruntius,  the  engineering  question  of  a  rem- 
edy for  overflows.  Both  of  these  were  conservatives,  and 
the  remedy  which  they  advised  proved  unacceptable  to 
the  popular  party,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  opposition 
not  merely  of  the  country  districts  but  of  Piso,  whose 
subsequent  opposition  to  the  senatorial  faction  cost  him 
his  life. 

We  will  now  turn  to  political  matters,  whose  culmina- 
tion, as  will  appear  in  the  next  chapter,  was  connected 
with  expulsion  of  Judaism  from  Eome  and  the  effort  to 
crush  its  Gentile  converts. 

Germanicus  '^^^  at  the  date  of  his  uncle's  accession  com- 
manded the  Roman  armies  in  Germany,  and  was  then 
already  concerned,  as  it  would  seem,  in  a  conspiracy 
against  him.  He  threatened,  and  almost  undoubtedly 
authorized,  a  butchery  of  soldiers  whose  fidelity  to  his 
uncle  forbade  acquiescence  in  the  plot  of  himself  and  of 
his  co-conspirators.^°^   His  effort  to  move  the  soldiers  by  a 

they  opposed  it  they  would  show  the  insincerity  of  their  professed  at- 
tachment to  ancient  religious  customs.  Tacitus  wishes  his  reader  to  be- 
lieve, what  he  is  careful  not  to  affirm,  that  the  motion  was  lost  because 
of  opposition  from  Tiberius. 

i°*  The  brother  of  Tiberius,  named  Di'usus,  sympathized  with  the  aris- 
tocratic party.  He  died  in  B.  c.  9.  His  widow  Antonia,  and  his  daugh- 
ter Livilla,  married  to  her  cousin,  the  younger  Tiberius,  sympathized  with 
the  popular  party.  Of  his  two  surviving  sons,  Germanicus  was  active  on 
the  patrician  side  ;  the  other,  Claudius,  though  an  imbecile,  was  at  a  later 
date  made  emperor  by  the  patricians. 

1°^  Tacitus  says  of  the  legions,  "  Earnest  were  their  hopes  that  Ger- 
manicus would  never  brook  the  rule  of  another. "  —  Tac  A71.  1, 31,  Bohn's 
trans.  The  remark  may  be  true  of  not  a  few  officers.  "  Germanicus  .  .  . 
sent  letters  before  him  to  Ccecina,  '  that  he  was  coming  with  a  powerful 
force  ;  and,  if  they  prevented  him  not  by  executing  the  guilty,  he  would 
put  them  to  the  sword  indiscriminately.'  These  letters  Csecina  privately 
read  to  the  standard-bearers,  the  inferior  officers,  and  such  of  the  private 
soldiers  as  were  least  disaffected.  .  .  .  The  officers,  having  sounded  those 
they  believed  fit  for  their  purpose,  and  found  the  majority  of  the  legions 
still  to  persevere  in  their  duty,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  general,  settled  a 
time  for  putting  to  the  sword  all  the  most  depraved  and  turbulent ;  then, 


182  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

show  of  suicide  was  no  more  successful  than  his  efforts 
at  compulsion.  One  of  the  soldiers  composedly  offered 
him  his  sword,  saying,  "  It  is  sharper  than  yours."  ^°^  He 
had  probably  conspired  with  the  Senate,  whose  deputies 
met  him  at  Bonn.*'^^  The  fidelity  of  the  soldiery  to  Ti- 
berius and  to  the  popular  party  rendered  necessary  a 
prompt  dismissal  of  these  deputies  under  guard.  Some 
of  the  higher  officers  were  in  the  conspiracy,  and  also 
CHyEREA,  whom  the  Senate  afterwards  employed  to  mur- 
der Caligula.  Germanicus  was  offered  the  empire.^^^  The 
story  that  the  legions  revolted  means  that  they  refused 
obedience  to  himself  and  to  such  ofticers  as  were  in  the 
conspiracy.  ■'^^ 

Germanicus  himself  must  for  a  time  have  been  de- 
tained a  prisoner  by  the  soldiery.^^^    He  gave  vent  to  his 

on  a  sigual  given  among  themselves,  they  rushed  into  their  tents  and 
butchered  them,  while  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  plot ;  none  but  those 
who  were  privy  to  it  understanding  wherefore  the  massacre  began,  or 
where  it  would  end."  —  Tacitus,  ^w.  1,  48,  Bohn's  trans.  The  conclud- 
ing remarks  imply  that  the  men  had  not  been  in  open  revolt,  otherwise 
the  oliject  of  the  massacre  would  have  been  obvious. 

106  Dio  Cass.  57,  5. 

107  Tacitus,  An.  1,  .SO. 

"8  Tacitus,  An.  1,  31-3.5, 

10^  Silius,  who  at  the  accession  of  Tiberius  commanded  on  the  Upper 
Ehine  a  large  army,  boasted  at  a  later  date,  "that  his  soldiery  had  re- 
tained their  subordination  [to  their  commanding  officers]  when  others  had 
broken  out  in  sedition  ;  nor  would  the  imperial  dignity  have  remained 
with  Tiberius  if  those  [the  other]  legions  had  been  desirous  of  a  revolu- 
tion."—  Tac.  An.  4, 18.  A  somewhat  similar  occurrence  took  place  when 
the  pro-slavery  rebellion  in  the  United  States  broke  out.  Array  officers,  ap- 
pointed during  dominance  of  the  .slave-holding  aristocracy,  and  by  their 
influence,  adhered  in  considerable  numbers  to  the  class  from  which  they 
sprung,  or  to  which  they  owed  promotion.  The  common  soldiers,  almost 
without  exception,  proved  true  to  the  government  and  the  cause  of  equal 
rights.  No  mutual  butchery,  however,  was  even  meditated.  These  re- 
marks are  also  true  concerning  navy  officers  and  common  seamen.  One 
instance  of  a  common  seaman  refusing  obedience  when  ordered  by  an 
officer  to  pull  down  the  national  flag  is  given  in  Moore,  Rebellion  Record, 
Diary,  p.  43. 

1"  Tacitus  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Germanicus  a  speech,  fabricated 


§xi.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   Nx\:RKATIVE,   A.  D.  14-18.  183 

disappointment,  or  sought  to  obscure  his  efforts  for  im- 
perial dignity,  by  carrying  on  war  against  the  natives  in 
a  vehement  and  brutal  manner. -^^^  In  fact,  at  a  yet  later 
date  his  inhumanity  "^  must  have  been  anything  but 
agreeable  to  an  uncle  who  was  habitually  just  and  forbear- 
ing even  to  an  enemy,  and  who  proved  remarkably  suc- 
cessful in  maintaining  peace  with  other  nations. 

In  A.  D.  16,  after  an  unsuccessful  campaign,  Tiberius 
had  recalled  to  Eome  the  reluctant  Germanicus.^^^  So 
soon  as  this  was  accomplished,  Germany  quieted  down 
and  remained  peaceful  towards  Eome  during  the  whole 
reign  of  the  former. 

probably  by  himself,  from  which  the  following  is  an  extract  :  "Shall  I 
call  you  soldiers  who  have  besieged  [me]  the  son  of  your  emperor  by  a 
rampart  and  with  arms  ?  Shall  I  call  you  citizens,  you  by  whom  sena- 
torial authority  is  set  at  naught  ? "  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  42. 

^^1  "  He  wasted  the  country  by  fire  and  sword  to  the  extent  of  fifty 
miles  ;  nor  sex  nor  age  found  mercy  ;  places  sacred  and  profane,  without 
distinction,  even  the  temple  of  Tanfana,  the  most  celebrated  amongst 
these  nations,  all  were  levelled  with  the  ground."  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  r,}, 
Bohn's  trans.   "He  fell  upon  theCattians  with  such  surprise,  that  all  the 

WEAK  THROUGH  SEX  OR  AGE  WERE  INSTANTLY  TAKEN  OR  SLAUGHTERED  ; 

their  youth  [from  the  other  side]  swam  over  the  Adrana  and  endeavored 
to  obstruct  the  Romans,  who  commenced  building  a  bridge  ;  then,  re- 
pulsed by  engines  and  arrows,  and  having  in  vain  tried  terms  of  peace, 
after  some  had  gone  over  to  Germanicus,  the  rest  abandoned  their  cantons 
and  villages,  and  dispersed  themselves  into  the  woods."  —  Tacitus,  An. 
1,  56,  Bohn's  trans. 

"2  "Germanicus  .  .  .  exhorted  his  men  ' to  prosecute  the  slaughter  ; 
they  wanted  no  captives,'  he  said  ;  'the  extermination  of  the  jjeople  alone 
would  put  an  end  to  the  war.'  "  —  Tac.  An.  2, 21,  Bohn's  trans.  Sueto- 
nius tells  us  {Tiberius,  c.  52)  that  Tiberius,  in  speaking  of  his  nephew's 
doings,  "depreciated  his  most  illustrious  exploits  as  snpervacuis,  worse 
than  objectless,  and  found  fault  with  his  most  glorious  victories  as  detri- 
mental to  the  Republic." 

ii'*  Tacitus,  An.  2,  26.  Tiberius  may,  in  recalling  his  nephew,  have 
avoided  harshness,  but  the  letter  to  Germanicus  which  Tacitus  puts  into 
his  mouth  must  be  fabricated.  He  seems  not  to  have  discouraged  in 
others  a  triumphal  reception  of  his  nephew,  though  he  knew  that  the 
chief  part  of  the  reception  given  to  him  had  been  gotten  up  for  political 
effect,  by  an  aristocracy  hostile  to  himself. 


184  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VII. 

A  year,  approximately,  after  his  recall,  the  aristocratic 
party  made  another  move.  "  By  a  decree  of  the  Fathers 
the  provinces  beyond  the  sea  were  granted  to  Germanicus 
with  an  authority  wherever  he  went  superior  to  such  as 
held  their  positions  by  [senatorial]  lot  or  by  commission 
from  the  prince."  ^^^  Tliis  was  intended  to  give  him  au- 
thority certainly  over  all  governors  of  Asiatic  provinces, 
and  has  been  understood  as  subjecting  Egypt  to  him  also. 
If  these  immense  powers  were  conferred  in  the  terms  used 
by  Tacitus,  they  were  equivalent  to  revolution,  for  they 
abrogated  a  settled  division  of  jurisdiction  between  the 
prince  and  Senate  which  had  been  in  force  nearly  half  a 
century,"^  and  was,  equally  as  any  other  existing  arrange- 
ment, part  of  the  agglomeration  that  served  as  a  consti- 
tution. Perhaps  the  conmiission  of  Germanicus  was  am- 
biguously worded,  so  as  to  permit  the  construction  aflfixed 
to  it  by  Tacitus. 

Tiberius,  to  prevent  the  threatening  mischief,  sent,  as 
governor,  to  Syria,  his  friend  Piso,^!^  whose  manliness  in 
a  trying  position  justified  his  selection.    He  reached  Syria 

11*  Tacitus,  Ah.  2,  43. 

115  The  division  took  plfice  under  Augustus  in  b.  c.  27,  and  is  given  in 
detail  by  Dio  Cassius,  53,  !•>.  Syria,  Phoenicia,  and  Cilicia  were  appor- 
tioned, in  Asia,  to  the  prince.  Outside  of  Asia,  Egypt  was  one  of  the 
provinces  which  fell  to  him.  The  aristocracy  —  though  deifying  Augus- 
tus, that  his  acts  in  their  favor  might  be  held  inviolable  —  would,  to  gain 
more  power,  have  abrogated  any  and  every  thing  done  by  him.  The 
army  had  for  half  a  century  been  under  control  of  the  prince. 

11^  Piso  had  in  B.  c.  7  been  consul  conjointly  with  Tiberius.  The  lat- 
ter went  into  exile  within  a  twelvemonth  after  expiration  of  his  office,  — 
an  evidence  that  things  during  this  consulship  did  not  satisfy  the  reac- 
tionary aristocracy.  It  gave  Tiberius  opportunity  to  estimate  his  col- 
league, whose  selection,  behavior,  and  fate,  in  the  present  conflict,  render 
it  probable  that  he  had  been  a  fast  friend  of  justice  rather  than  of  patri- 
cian claims.  His  friendship  for  Tiberius  was  free  from  obsequiousness,  as 
appears  in  his  pleasantry  (Tacitus,  An.  1,  TJ),  and  in  his  desire  (Tacitus, 
An.  2,  3.'))  that  business  should  proceed  as  usual  during  an  expected 
absence  of  the  emperor.  Gallus,  who  opposed  this  latter  motion,  may 
have  estimated  patrician  objects  and  unscrupulousness  more  correctly  than 
the  frank-hearted  Piso, 


§  XI.]  CHKONOLOGICAL  NAKRATIYE,  A.  D.    14-18.  185 

early  in  A.  d.  18,  and  nearly  at  the  same  time  Germanicus, 
who  had  left  Eome  earlier,  landed  in  Asia  Minor.  Piso 
at  once  commenced  drilling  the  legions,^^'^  and  changed 
some  officers,  substituting,  doubtless,  for  men  in  the  patri- 
cian interest,  others  on  whom  he  could  rely.^^^  German- 
icus  almost  immediately  set  out  for  a  foreign  country, 
Armenia,  and  went  through  the  farce  of  crowning  a  king 
there.  This  secured  him  favor  and  the  promise,  doubtless, 
of  co-operation  from  the  faction  which  the  king  repre- 
sented. He  then  ordered  Piso  to  lead  part  of  the  Syrian 
legions  into  Armenia.  Piso,  who  knew  that  his  duties 
lay  in  the  Eoman  province  of  Syria,  not  in  the  foreign 
country  of  Armenia,  forbore  —  as  did  Tiberius  throughout 
his  reign  —  any  interference  with  the  internal  affairs  of  a 
foreign  nation.  Subsequently,  at  a  banquet,  Germanicus 
and  his  wife  accepted  golden  crowns  from  the  king  of  the 
Nabathseans,  a  people  in  Northern  Arabia.  Yet  later,  at 
the  request  of  Artabanus,  king  of  the  Parthians,  and  with 
a  view,  no  doubt,  to  his  alliance,  he,  against  the  will  of 
Piso,  sent  as  a  prisoner  from  Syria  into  Cilicia,  Vonones, 
an  expatriated  Parthian  king,  a  friend  of  Tiberius,  living 
under  Eoman  protection.  The  unfortunate,  man,  a  persdn 
apparently  of  culture,  was  promptly  afterwards  mur- 
dered."9 

^1^  Tacitus  saj's  {A71.  2,  .55)  that  Piso  allowed  the  soldiery  to  live  idly 
IN  CAMP,  ill-behaved  in  the  cities,  and  to  roam  mischievously  about  the 
country.  But  in  the  same  paragraph  he  unwittingly  betrays  that  this 
was  the  reverse  of  truth,  by  charging  Piso's  wife  with  lack  of  feminine 
modesty  in  attending  the  military  exercises  of  cavalry  and  infantry. 

11"  Silanus,  the  previous  governor  of  Syria,  was  connected  with  Ger- 
manicus by  the  intermarriage  of  their  children,  and  had  possibly  been 
arranging  matters  in  the  interest  of  Germanicus.  Tacitus  {An.  2,  .5.')) 
ti-eats  these  charges  as  being  to  the  detriment  of  army  discipline,  but 
adds,  that  "some  even  of  the  good  soldiers  were  prompt  in  their  undue 
subserviency  because  of  a  .secret  rumor  that  these  things  were  not  unac- 
ceptable to  the  emperor."  If  so,  we  may  feel  sure  that  they  did  not  cause 
deterioration  of  discipline. 

"^  According  to  Suetonius  {Tiberius,  49)  the  wealth  of  Vonones  caused 
his  murder.  It  would,  of  course,  prove  very  convenient  in  making  ar- 
rangements for  a  rebellion. 


186  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

CHAPTEE  VIII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  19-70. 

§  1.  A.  D.  19,  20.     Conversions  to  Judaism  become  Illegal. 

The  preparations  for  rebellion  against  Tiberius,  men- 
tioned in  our  last  chapter,  had  been  about  consummated 
at  the  beginning  of  the  present  year.  The  plan,  so  far 
as  it  can  be  inferred  from  the  actions  of  those  concerned 
in  it,  was  as  follows.  Germanicus,  under  his  authoriza- 
tion from  the  Senate,  was  to  drive  out  from  his  uncle's 
provinces^  the  appointees  of  his  uncle,  and  Mas  to  establish 
in  those  provinces  a  kingdom  for  himself  The  aristocracy 
at  Eome  meanwhile  were,  in  the  first  place,  to  drive  out, 
under  different  pretexts,  those  likely  to  take  his  uncle's 
part,  and  were  then  to  re-establish  the  unlimited  control 
of  the  Senate  as  it  had  existed  in  times  of  patrician  su- 
premacy. 

The  forces  of  Germanicus  consisted  probably  of  such 
troops  as  the  senatorial  faction  could  furnish  from  its  own 
provinces,  and  of  auxiliaries  from  the  Arabian  king  who 
had  crowned  him,  from  the  Armenian  faction  whose  king 
he  had  crowned,  and,  last  but  not  least,  from  the  Parthian 
king.  In  Egypt,  which  lay  at  a  distance  from  Parthia 
and  from  the  senatorial  provinces,  he  made  no  headway, 
notwithstanding  his  efforts  to  gain  favor  with  the  inhab- 
itants.^    In  Syria  he  drove  out  his  uncle's  deputy,  but 

^  See  division  of  provinces  mentioned  in  Ch.  VII.  note  115. 

2  Germanicus,  according  to  Tacitus  {An.  2,  Ki),  divested  himself  of 
his  Roman  dress  and  adopted  that  of  the  Greeks.  He  also,  as  mentioned 
by  Pliny  (Nat.  Hist.  8,  71,  1  ;  al.  46),  consulted  the  Egyptian  divinity 
Apis,  the  sacred  bull.  The  former  procedure  suggests  a  question  whether 
Germanicus  held  forth  that  his  kingdom  was  to  be  a  Grecian  rather  than 
a  Roman  one.  His  visit  to  Apis  is  (intentionally?)  omitted  by  Tacitus. 
It  may  well  have  seemed  incongruous  that  the  aristocracy  should  perse- 
cute Egyptianism  at  Rome  whilst  their  leader  sought  its  favor  in  Egypt. 


§  I.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  19,  20.  187 

was  not  long  afterwards  carried  off  by  an  illness.  The 
efforts  of  Tacitus  to  prevent  a  comprehension  of  his  ac- 
tions are  given  below.^  Piso  at  once  returned  with  such 
forces  as  he  could  collect*  The  Parthian  king,  though 
writing  abusively  to  Tiberius,^  must  have  been  conquered 
and  compelled  to  give  hostages.^ 

At  Rome  one  or  both  of  the  consuls  were  of  the  ultra- 
patrician  school.  The  new  year  was  welcomed  by  one  of 
them  with  a  blast  from  his  trumpet,^  in  anticipation,  as  it 
would  seem,  of  military  deeds.  Apprehension  as  to  the 
result  must  have  been  general,  for  a  couplet  was  sung  in 
the  streets^''  as  Sibylline  :  — 

Their  action  may  have  taken  place  after  failure  by  him  to  enlist  Egyptian 
aid. 

*  "  Germanicus  returning  from  Egypt  found  his  commands  to  legions 
or  cities  annulled  or  reversed.  Hence  serious  insults  [were  heaped  by 
him]  on  Piso,  nor  did  the  latter  exert  himself  with  less  asperity  against 
Germanicus.  From  that  time  (?)  Piso  determined  to  quit  Syria.  .  .  . 
There  were  found  on  the  floor  and  walls  [of  Germanicus,  who  is  repre- 
sented as  having  fallen  ill]  exhumed  remnants  of  human  bodies,  verses 
and  magic  cursings  and  the  name  of  Germanicus  cut  into  leaden  tablets, 
half- burnt  ashes  smeared  with  gore,  and  other  evil  doings  by  which  souls 
are  reputedly  devoted  to  the  infernal  powers.  .  .  .  Germanicus  heard 
of  these  things  with  no  less  anger  than  fear.  ...  He  wrote  [to  Piso], 
renouncing  his  friendship.  Most  add,  that  he  commanded  him  to  leave 
the  province.  Nor  did  Piso  delay  longer."  —  Tacitus,  An.  2,  G9,  70. 
This  seems  to  be  the  nearest  approach  to  an  apology  which  Tacitus  can 
frame  for  the  treason  of  Gennanicus  in  seizing  Syria  and  forcibly  driving 
out  the  prefect  whom  his  uncle  had,  so  far  as  there  was  any  constitution 
at  Rome,  constitutionally  appointed. 

*  Piso  wrote  to  Tiberius  that,  "driven  out  to  make  room  for  revolu- 
tion, he  had  redirected  his  steps  to  take  charge  of  the  army,  prompted 
by  the  same  fidelity  wherewith  he  had  previously  exercised  his  com- 
mand."—  Tacitus,  An.  2,  78.  His  efforts  to  strengthen  his  forces  are 
mentioned  in  the  same  chapter. 

s  Suetonius,  Tib.  66. 

^  A  king  was  subsequently  (Dio  Cass.  58,  2G)  selected  by  the  Parthians 
from  among  these  hostages.  The  Parthian  hostages  mentioned  by  Sue- 
tonius {Calig.  19)  must  have  been  these  sent  in  the  time  of  Tiberius.  No 
subsequent  occurrence  had  called  for  them. 

7  Dio  Cass.  57,  18.  f*  Ibid. 


188  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

"  When  thrice  three  hundred  years  shall  have  passed 
Internal  sedition,  the  Sybaritic  madness,  shall  destroy  the  Romans." 

As  a  first  step  towards  crippling  Tiberius,  the  Senate 
expelled  the  Jews  and  their  converts  from  Eome  or  Italy, 
after  having  impressed  four  thousand  of  their  younger 
men  and  shut  them  up  in  Sardinia,^  an  island  under  sen- 
atorial control,  where  they  would  be  unavailable  for  the 
popular  party.  The  Senate  also  instituted  an  inquisition 
which,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  fears  of  Seneca's  father, 
must  have  been  unsparing,  touching  any  who  held  Jew- 
ish views,^  and  we  can  safely  infer  that  it  would  have 


^  "Action  was  also  held  touching  expulsion  of  the  Egyptian  and  Jewisli 
religions,  and  a  decree  was  enacted  by  the  Senate,  '  that  four  thousand 
FUEEDiiEN  of  Suitable  age,  who  were  infected  with  that  [the  Jewish] 
superstition,  should  be  deportiid  to  the  island  of  Sardinia  to  restrain  the 
robbers  there,  and,  if  they  perished  by  tlie  severity  of  the  cliuiate,  the 
loss  would  be  a  cheap  one  ;  that  the  others  should  quit  Italy,  unless 
before  a  iixed  day  they  had  renounced  their  profane  rites.'  "  —  Tacitus, 
Ail.  2,  85.     If  the  former  "  perished  "  it  was  probably  by  murder. 

Some  of  these  freedmen,  instead  of  being  born  Jews,  may  originally 
have  been  Gentiles.  Dio  Cassius  says :  "  I  do  not  know  whence  this 
appellation  (Jews)  originated,  but  it  applies  to  such  other  men  as  are 

DEVOTED   TO   THEIR   INSTITUTIONS,   EVEN  IF  FROM    OTHER   NATIONS."  — 

Dio  Cass.  37,  I7. 

Tiberius  "repressed  foreign  ceremonies  [namely],  Egyptian  and  Jewish 
rites,  compelling  such  as  were  under  control  of  that  [the  Egyptian  ?] 
superstition  to  burn  their  sacred  vestments  with  all  their  appai'atus. 
He  distributed  the  young  men  of  the  Jews  under  guise  of  a  military  con- 
scription into  provinces  v\^here  the  climate  was  severe.  The  others 
of  that  race,  or  proselytes  to  their  views,  similva  sectantes,  he  removed 
from  the  city,  under  pain  of  perpetual  servitude  if  they  did  not  obey." 
—  Suetonius,  Tib.  c.  36.  The  vestments  burned  must  have  been  Egyp- 
tian. The  Jewish  priesthood,  with  its  paraphernalia,  was  confined  to 
Jerusalem.     Tlie  synagogue  service  seems  to  have  been  devoid  of  show. 

^  Tlie  reader,  while  perusing  the  following,  should  bear  in  mind  the 
statement  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  .307,  col.  1,  that,  "of  solid 
meat,  pork  seems  [among  the  Romans]  to  have  been  the  favorite  dish,"  — 
a  remark  equally  true  of  the  Greeks.  See  the  same  work,  p.  30,5,  col.  2. 
Seneca,  after  ex]ilainiTig  tliat  when  lu;  was  a  young  man  a  certnin  Sotion, 
a  disciple  of  Pythagoras,  had  persuaded  liim  to  give  up  animal  food,  con- 


§  I.]  CIIROXOLOGICAL   NAERATIVE.    A.  D.  19,  20.  189 

shown  little  or  no  justice  to  political  opponents.  Tiberius 
at  once  exerted  himself  to  protect  the  Jews,  in  such  prov- 
inces as  he  controlled. 

Josephus  mentions  as  the  cause  of  Jewish  expulsion 
an  incident  utterly  insufficient  to  justify  such  wholesale 
proscription.^"  If  it  occurred,  whether  by  preconcert  or 
not,  of  patrician  agents,  it  must  have  been  merely  a  pre- 
text, not  the  reason  for  expulsion.  It  is  not  mentioned 
by  Tacitus  or  Suetonius,  and  may  be  merely  a  tiction  by 
the  Jewish  aristocracy  in  exculpation  of  their  patrician  al- 
lies.    The  alleged  occurrence  at  an  Egyptian  temple,  also 

tinues  :  "At  the  expiration  of  a  year  the  custom  was  not  only  easy  but 
pleasant  to  me.-  I  believed  my  mind  to  be  more  active,  though  at  present 
I  would  not  affirm  whether  it  were  so  or  not.  Do  you  ask  why  I  gave  it 
up  ?  [The  answer  is  that]  I  was  a  j'oung  man  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius 
Caesar.  Other-race  religious  observances  were  at  that  time  in  course 
of  expulsion,  and  among  the  proofs  of  [adhesion  to  foreign]  superstition 
was  regarded  abstinence  from  the  flesh  of  certain  animals.  When,  there- 
fore, I  was  requested  by  my  father,  who  feared  calumny,  though  he  had 
no  distaste  for  philosophy,  I  returned  to  my  former  way  of  life.  Neither 
had  he  much  difficulty  in  persuading  me  to  commence  with  better  fare." 
—  Seneca,  Epistle  108,  §§  21,  22. 

^^  ' '  There  was  a  man  who  was  a  Jew,  but  had  been  driven  away  from 
his  own  country  by  an  accusation  laid  against  him  for  transgressing  their 
laws  and  by  the  fear  he  was  under  of  punishment  for  the  same;  but  in 
all  respects  a  wicked  man.  He,  then  living  at  Rome,  professed  to  in- 
struct men  in  the  wisdom  of  the  laws  of  Moses.  He  procured  also  three 
other  men,  entirely  of  the  same  character  with  himself,  to  be  his  part- 
ners. These  men  persuaded  Fulvia,  a  woman  of  great  dignity,  and  one 
that  had  embraced  the  Jewish  religion,  to  send  purple  and  gold  to  the 
temple  at  Jerusalem ;  and  when  they  had  gotten  them,  they  employed 
them  for  their  own  uses,  and  spent  the  money  themselves ;  on  which  ac- 
count it  was  that  they  at  first  required  it  of  her.  Whereupon  Tiberius  [?] 
(who  had  been  informed  of  the  thing  by  Saturninus,  the  husband  of  Fulvia, 
at  his  wife's  solicitation)  ordered  everj^thing  Jewish  to  be  banished  out 
of  Rome ;  at  which  time  the  consuls  listed  [impressed]  four  thousand 
men  out  of  them,  and  sent  them  to  the  island  of  Sardinia;  but  punished 
a  greater  number  of  them,  who  were  unwilling  to  become  soldiers,  on 
account  of  keeping  the  laws  of  their  forefathers.  Thus  were  these  Jews 
banished  out  of  the  city  by  the  wickedness  of  four  men."  —  Josephus, 
Antiq.  18,  3,  5,  Whiston's  trans,  altered.    Compare  Ch.  II.  §  ii.  2. 


190  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

narrated  by  Joseplius  alone,^^  has,  after  due  allowance  for 
feminine  credulity  and  heathen  immorality,  an  improbable 
look.  Any  unpreconcerted  coincidence  of  the  two  events 
with  each  other  and  witli  a  political  crisis  of  patrician- 
ism  is  utterly  unlikely.  Josephus  and  Suetonius  ascribe 
Jewish  expulsion  to  Tiberius.  This  would  imply  that  he 
expelled  his  political  friends  and  placed  them  in  Sardinia, 
under  control  of  his  political  enemies,  —  a  supposition 
which  defies  credence.  The  penalty  affixed  to  residence  in 
the  city  by  a  Jew  or  convert  to  Judaism  was,  as  already 
quoted  from  Suetonius,  perpetual  slavery.  The  severe  (?) 
climate  of  Sardinia  and  the  repression  of  robbers  there 
are  intended  probably  to  divert  the  reader's  attention 
from  the  true  object  of  the  conscription. 

Coincident  with  anti-Jewish  legislation  the  patricians 
had  arranged  a  testimonial  of  increased  devotion  towards 
those  institutions  which  they  were  desperately  trying  to 
uphold.  Occia,  a  Vestal  Virgin,  had  died  ;  how  long  pre- 
viously we  are  not  told.  Her  office  (see  Ch.  VII.  note 
95)  had  already,  in  the  days  of  Augustus,  lost  its  attrac- 
tions. But  heathen  customs  needed  to  be  upheld  as  a  sup- 
port to  patricianism.  Zeal  for  party  overrode  parental 
affection.  Two  apparently  prominent  patricians  had 
arranged  to  offer  eacli  a  daugliter.  The  choice  between 
them  was  not  decided  by  lot,  but  by  considerations  which 
raise  the  following  questions.  Had  Jewish  influence  nur- 
tured among  Eomans  an  idea  that  absence  of  divorce  was 
a  qualification  for  religious  office  ?  And  was  an  anti- 
Jewish  Senate  influenced  by  a  moral  consideration,  whose 
PROMINENCE  in  the  community  was  attributable  to  Jewish 
teachimi  ?i2 


1^  Josephus  gives  the  details  in  his  Antiquities,  18,  3,  4.  The  husband 
of  Paulina,  equally  as  of  Fulvia,  is  by  Josejihus  called  Saturninus. 

^  "  After  which  things  [namely,  the  anti-Jewish  provisions]  Csesar 
laid  before  the  Senate,  '  that  a  virgin  was  to  be  selected  in  the  place  of 
Occia,  who  during  fifty-seven  years  had  presided  with  the  greatest  sanc- 
tity over  the  Vestal  observances ' ;  and  he  [?J  gave  thanks  to  Fonteius 
Agrippa  and  Doinitius  PoUio,  that  by  offering  their  daughters  they  had 
vied  in  good  offices  toward  the  Republic  [the  Senate  ?].     The  daughter 


§  I.]      CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,  A.  D.  19,  20.     191 

An  incident  which  can  only  by  conjecture  be  connected 
with  the  cause  of  monotheism  and  popular  rights  is  re- 
manded to  a  note.^^ 

The  rebellion  at  the  East  had  been  thwarted  largely 
through  Piso's  activity.  The  chagrined  aristocracy  deter- 
mined to  wreak  their  vengeance  on  him.  Agrippina,  the 
wife  of  Germanicus,  disappointed  of  royalty,  brought 
back,  in  no  amiable  mood,^'*  the  ashes  of  her  husband  in 
a  pompous  funeral  procession  to  Eome.  The  aristocracy 
exerted  themselves  to  make  capital  out  of  the  occasion. 

Tiberius  sent  two  pretorian  cohorts  to  escort  his 
nephew's  remains  ;  but  neither  he  nor  the  mother  of 
Germanicus,  nor  yet  the  grandmother,  a  partisan  in  most 
things  of  the  aristocracy,  attended  the  funeral.  All  saw 
that  it  had  become  a  mere  political  manifestation  with  a 
criminal  object. 

The  funeral  occurred  early  in  A.  d.  20.    At  a  subsequent 

of  Pollio  was  preferred,  solely  because  of  her  mother  never  having  been 
divorced ;  for  Agrippa  by  a  separation  had  lowered  [the  standing  of]  his 
house."  —  Tacitus,  ^ji.  2,86.  The  foregoing  attributes  to  Tiberius  a 
limited  manifestation  of  respect  towards  heathen  rites,  which  is  rendered 
improbable  by  his  known  tendencies  and  yet  more  by  the  political  sig- 
nificance, hostile  to  himself,  which  any  effort  towards  re-establishing 
heathen  religious  customs  must  then  have  had.  The  truthfulness  of 
Tacitus  is  inadequate  evidence  of  sympathy  by  Tiberius  with  the  action. 

^8  Titidius  Labeo  was  summoned  to  answer  (Tacitus,  An.  2,  85)  the 
charge  of  undue  lenity  to  his  wife.  If  she  acted  as  alleged  he  would  have 
been  entitled  to  commiseration  rather  than  prosecution.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  heedless  words  had  by  the  ingenuity  of  party  malice  been  distorted 
into  a  confession  of  crime,  then  a  gross  wrong  was  perpetrated  towards 
her,  that  a  blow  might  be  aimed  at  her  husband.  Heathen  dissoluteness 
prevents  her  alleged  conduct  from  being  incredible.  The  name  of  Labeo, 
however,  and  the  vindictiveness  of  party  strife,  suggest  that  some  son 
of  the  celebrated  jurist  may,  in  this,  have  been  persecuted  for  services 
rendered  by  his  father  to  the  cause  of  human  right. 

1*  Agrippina  seems  to  have  been  ambitious  and  vindictive,  as  we  may 
infer  from  the  advice  to  her  which  Tacitus  (An.  2,  72)  attributes  to  her 
husband,  from  the  remark  to  her  of  Tiberius  (Sueton.  Tib.  53),  and  from 
his  letter  (Tac.  An.  5,  3),  and  from  her  connection  with  the  rebellion  of 
A.  D.  31,  as  also  from  remarks  found  in  Tacitus,  An,  4,  39,  52,  53. 


192  JUDAISM   AT  KOME.  [cil.  VIII. 

date  Piso  arrived,  and  was  escorted  by  friends  to  his  house. 
On  the  day  after  his  arrival  prosecution  (under  the  llomau 
system  of  private  prosecutors^^)  was  commenced  against 
him  by  Fulcinius  Trio,  who,  eleven  years  later,  reappears, 
conjointly  with  Agrippina,  as  leader  of  the  aristocracy  in 
another  rebellion  against  Tiberius.  For  some  reason,  liow- 
ever,  it  must  have  been  deemed  judicious  to  withdraw 
Trio  and  substitute  other  accusers.  Before  a  regular  tri- 
bunal the  Senate  would  have  been  defeated,  but  by  some 
stretch  of  power  it  had  the  case  brought  before  itself. 
Thus  Piso's  enemies  were  to  be  his  judges.  By  what 
procedure  the  trial  was  removed  from  an  ordinary  court 
into  the  Senate -^^  does  not  appear. 

A  mob,  organized  of  course  by  the  opposite  faction, 
seized  Piso's  statues  and  hurried  with  them  towards  the 
place  for  executed  criminals.  A  file  of  soldiers,  who  must 
have  received  orders  from  Tiberius,  rescued  the  statues 
promptly  and  replaced  them  where  they  had  previously 
stood. 

The  Senate  condemned  Piso  to  death.^^    He  committed 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  C. 

1®  Compare  on  p.  112  note  119.  A  similar  transfer  of  trial  took  place,  in 
the  British  House  of  Commons  when  the  South  Sea  scheme  fell  through. 
"  It  was  not  found  possible  by  any  process  of  legal  punishment  to  pursue 
with  due  pains  and  penalties.  .  .  .  The  Houses  of  P.irliament  .  .  .  made 
the  directors  bring  in  an  account  of  their  pioperty  and  estates  .  .  .  and 
.  .  .  fined  them  at  their  pleasure."  —  Smyth,  Lcct.  on  Mod.  Hist.  Voh 
2,  pp.  259,  260,  Am.  edit.  These  directors  were  not,  as  Piso,  punished 
for  allegiance  to  duty. 

The  usual  tribunal  (Tac.  An.  2,  79)  would  seem  to  have  been  a  pretor's 
court.  Tacitus  {An.  3,  10)  narrates  that  proceedings  were  first  com- 
menced before  the  consuls.  These  were  dropped.  Tiberius  was  asked 
to  sit  as  judge,  for  the  prince,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  had,  since  its  origin 
in  the  days  of  Augustus,  judicial  power.  The  request  came  doubtless 
from  friends  of  Piso,  though  Tacitus  puts  it  into  such  connection  as 
favors  an  opposite  conclusion.  Tiberius  declined,  and,  as  misrepresented 
by  Tacitus  {An.  3,  lo),  referred  the  matter  to  the  Senate. 

17  Suetonius,  Calaj.  c.  2.  The  only  real  charge  against  Piso  was  that 
he  had  poisoned  Germanicus.  The  evidence  of  this,  according  to  Pliny 
{Nat.  Hist.  11,  71,  -2),  was  the  following.    The  heart  of  a  poisoned  person 


§  I.]  CHEOXOLOGICAL  NAKRATIVE,  A.  D.  19,  20.  193 

suicide  after  having  requested  by  letter  the  exertions  of 
Tiberius  in  behalf  of  his  childreu.^^  Tiberius,  whose 
questions  betoken  painful  interest  in  the  fate  of  his 
friend/^  exerted  himself  at  once  in  behalf  of  his  family 
and  against  the  motion  to  erase  his  name  from  the  annals, 
that  is,  from  the  list  of  consuls.^^  Tacitus  would  have 
us  believe  that  Tiberius  during  the  trial  looked  grave  or 
indifferent,  and,  therefore,  Piso  committed  suicide.^^ 

The  aristocracy,  as  we  may  infer  from  Dio  Cassius, 
pushed  their  success  and  involved  some  of  Piso's  friends, 
or  of  their  own  enemies,  in  his  fate.^^     This  sequence 


could  not,  according  to  the  allegation  of  Piso's  accusers,  be  burned.  The 
fire  which  consumed  the  body  of  Germanicus  did  not  consume  his  heart ; 
therefore  he  must  have  been  poisoned.  Even  Tacitus  allows  {An.  3,  14) 
that  the  charge  was  not  proved. 

Other  accusations  of  war  against  the  provinces  and  the  allies  must  have 
meant  simply  that  Piso,  when  attacked,  defended  himself  and  maintained 
the  authority  of  Tiberius  against  the  Senate  in  provinces  which  for  fifty 
years  had  been  under  jurisdiction,  not  of  the  latter,  but  of  the  prince. 
Compare  note  25. 

i«  Tacitus,  A7i.  3,  16. 

^9  "Caesar,  putting  on  an  expression  of  grief,  [said  to  Piso's  freedman 
who  (Tac.  An.  3,  15)  had  been  intrusted  with  the  letter]  that  he  (Piso) 
had  by  such  a  death  invited  disgrace  on  himself  at  the  hands  of  the 
Senate.  Then  by  repeated  inquiries  he  sought  out  in  detail  what  kind 
of  a  day  and  night  Piso's  last  had  been."  —  Tacitus,  An.  3,  16.  The 
character  of  Tiberius  (see  note  G)  is  a  guaranty  that  grief,  if  manifested, 
was  felt.  The  remark  to  the  freedman  is  probably  a  fiction;  its  object 
being  to  conceal  the  fact  that  Piso  had  already  been  condemned. 

20  Tacitus,  A7i.  3  17,  18. 

21  "  Piso,  having  suffered  from  renewed  accusation,  [had  it  been  inter- 
mitted or  decided  once  in  his  favor  ?]  from  hostile  voices  of  the  Fathers 
and  from  all  adverse  and  threatening  circumstances,  was  utterly  fright- 
ened by  nothing  so  much  as  by  seeing  Tiberius  without  [evidence  of] 
commiseration  or  anger.  ...  At  daybreak  he  was  found  [in  his  chamber], 
his  throat  cut,  his  sword  lying  on  the  ground."  —  Tacitus,  An.  3,  15. 

-2  "  In  retaliation  for  the  death  of  Germanicus  many  were  destroyed  on 

the  charge  that  they  had  rejoiced  at  it."  —  Dio  Cassius,  57,  18.     The 

connection  attributes  these  murders  to  Tiberius ;  but  after  his  death  all 

murders  perpetrated  in  his  reign  by  the  senatorial  faction  were,  by  that 

9  M 


194  JUDAISM  AT   KOME.  [CH.  VIU. 

of  the  trial  is  ignored,  or  concealed,  by  Tacitus,^  who, 
thougli  acquainted  with  the  views  of  the  popular  party 
concerning  Gerniauicus,^*  has  given  us  merely  patrician 
statements,  or  his  own  fictions  and  discolorations.^*^  One 
of  his  boldest  efforts  at  untrutli  is  the  statement  under 
A.  D.  23,  tliat,  during  the  reign  of  Tiberius  prior  to  that 
date,  the  Eepublic  had  been  compositam,  "  free  from  dis- 
turbance." 

In  the  management  of  accusations  against  Piso  or  others 
of  the  popular  party  it  is  probable  tliat  the  established  in- 
stitution of  Prosecutors  on  shares  must  have  showed  some 


faction,  attributed  to  him.  Compare,  in  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note 
114. 

^  Tacitus,  after  mentioning  rewards  to  the  prosecutors,  alleges  :  "  This 
was  the  end  of  [proceedings  in]  revenge  for  the  death  of  Germanicus."  — 
An.  3,  19. 

^*  Tacitus  says  concerning  the  death  of  Germanicus,  under  which  he 
includes  apparently  what  preceded  and  followed  it :  "  Even  in  subsequent 
times  diverse  views  of  it  had  currency.  Points  of  the  highest  importance 
are  in  doubt,  because  some  treat  mere  hearsay  as  certainty,  while  others 
reverse  the  truth."  —  An.  3,  19. 

^^  Tacitus  {An.  3,  12)  attributes  to  Tiberius  a  remark,  that  if  Piso  had 
failed  in  respect  towards  Germanicus,  this  was  a  matter  for  himself  to 
resent,  not  as  prince  but  as  a  private  individual.  If  Tiberius  uttered  the 
remark,  it  meant,  doubtless,  that  such  disrespect  was  no  matter  for  judi- 
cial cognizance. 

The  following  statements  attributed  to  Tiberius  must  be  outright  fab- 
rications. That  only  the  wisdom  of  Germanicus  could  manage  matters  at 
the  East  (Tac.  A71.  2,  43) ;  that  he  had  by  authorization  of  the  Senate  sent 
Piso  thither  as  a  [subordinate]  coadjutor  to  Germanicus  (Tac.  An.  3,  12); 
that  he  promised  rewards  to  the  prosecutors  of  Piso  (Tac.  An.  3,  li)). 
Equally  fabricated  must  be  the  expressions  professedly  copied  from  Piso's 
letter  to  Tiberius:  "Divine  Augustus";  " my  wickedness. "  Piso  was 
writing  to  one  who  knew  him  to  be  innocent. 

The  meanest  insinuation  is  one  which  Tacitus  (An.  3,  16)  does  not 
pretend  to  have  found  recorded  anywhere,  namely,  that  Piso  had  not 
committed  suicide,  but  been  assassinated  by  an  emissary  of  Tiberius. 
Tacitus  remembered  to  have  heard  this  from  scnioribus  persons  of  a 
former  generation  whose  names  he  does  not  give.  Compare,  in  the  Ap- 
pendix, Note  G,  §  V.  as  to  his  untruthfulness. 


§n.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  21-37.  195 

of  its  worst  features,  for  a  commission  was  appointed  to 
remedy  its  evils.^^ 

§n.    A.  R  21-37. 

During  that  portion  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  which  is 
after  a.  d.  19,  our  knowledge  of  Judaism  at  Eome  is  quite 
indirect.  We  may  safely  assume  that  moral  sense  could 
not  approve  expulsion,  or  servitude,  of  well-behaved  citi- 
zens because  of  their  belief;  and  if  Jews  were  the  me- 
chanics of  that  day,  that  the  industrial  wants  of  the  com- 
munity, no  less  than  the  politics  of  the  popular  party, 
would  powerfully  co-operate  with  moral  sense.  It  is  not 
strange,  therefore,  that  the  aristocracy  were  at  once  put 
upon  the  defensive  and  needed  to  ransack  antiquity  for 
the  semblance  of  precedent.^"  Absence  of  disturbance 
in  Judea  during  the  whole  reign  of  Tiberius  (Tac.  Hist. 
5,  9)  must  have  been  due  to  confidence  in  himself,  not  to 
confidence  in  the  Senate. 

^  Tacitus,  An.  3,  28.     Compare  Appendix,  Note  C. 

'^^  Valerius  Maximus,  in  a  work  issued  during  the  reign  of  Tiberius, 
devotes  a  chapter  (Book  1,  c.  3)  to  the  instances  in  which  a  foreign  re- 
ligion had  been  rejected,  de  jjcrcgrhm  rdigione  rejccta.  Under  three 
heads  he  mentions  five  instances.  1.  Bacchanal  orgies,  after  being  car- 
ried to  excess,  had  been  abolished  ;  and  "  Lutatius,  who  finished  the  first 
Punic  war,  was  forbidden  by  the  Senate  to  consult  the  oracle  of  Fortune 
at  Prseneste,  for  they  decided  that  the  Republic  ought  to  be  administered 
according  to  its  own,  not  according  to  foreign,  divination."  2.  Cornelius 
Hispallus,  "pretor  for  foreigners,"  had  given  the  astrologers  ten  days  in 
which  to  leave  the  city  and  Italy.  The  same  man  had  sent  "to  their 
homes  [in  the  city  ?]  those  who  by  a  pretended  worship  of  Sabazian 
Jove  endeavored  to  corrupt  Roman  customs."  3.  A  temjjle  of  Isis  and 
Serapis  had  been  destroyed. 

To  class  astrology  as  a  foreign  religion,  or  astrologers  as  a  religious 
sect,  seems  a  stretch  of  language.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  only  means  of 
finding  a  precedent  for  expelling  religionists  from  the  city,  or  from  Italy. 
On  Jewish  connection  with  astrology,  see  pp.  37,  38. 

The  derivation  of  the  term  "Sabazian  Jove"  is  uncertain.  If  it  were 
a  corruption  for  Jove  Sabaoth,  or  Jove  Sabatticus,  we  might  reasonably 
infer  that  in  B.  c.  139,  when  Cornelius  Scipio  Hispallus  was  pretor  (see 
Scipio,  No.  28,  in  Smith,  Diet,  of  Biog.),  some  (foreigners)  at  Rome  had 
mixed  Judaism  with  heathenism. 


196  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

As  regards  heathenism  we  can  see  that  the  reactionary 
spasm  had  done  it  no  service.  Temples  had  been  multi- 
pHed.  The  conservative  reaction  of  A.  d.  19  may  have 
furnished  a  pretext  for  erecting  new  ones,  but  the  fol- 
lowing causes  were  also  probably  efficient.  A  criminal, 
a  debtor,  or  a  slave  who  took  refuge  in  a  temple  could  not 
be  taken  thence  by  pursuers.  Very  numerous  classes  in 
the  community,  therefore,  were  interested  in  encouraging 
and  aiding  this  multiplication  of  asylums.^^  A  fraternity 
of  thieves  would  inevitably  be  among  the  most  pious  and 
outspoken  in  their  devotion  to  temple  building.  A  sen- 
atorial investigation  during  A.  D.  22  into  the  claims  of 
different  temples  merely  opened  the  floodgates  of  fable 
and  deluged  the  Senate  with  traditions  which  its  ortho- 
doxy must  have  been  puzzled  either  to  accept  or  reject, 
and  which  exhausted  patience.^^  If  the  monotheistic  and 
popular  party  had  devised  a  plan  for  weakening  heathen- 
ism and  exposing  it  to  contempt,  they  could  hardly  have 
invented  a  better  one  than  such  an  investigation. 

Heathen  deities  took,  according  to  prevalent  ideas,  no 
interest  in  moral  offences  of  man  against  man,  but  were 
sure  to  resent  insult  to  themselves,  whether  by  taking  a 
man  from  their  altars,  or  otherwise ;  therefore,  what  the 
heathens  miscalled  religion,  was  legitimately  account- 
able for  prevailing  evils.  So  far  as  the  conservative 
reaction  of  A.  D.  19  stimulated  erection  of  temples,  it 
contributed  towards  exposing  the  true  character  of  heath- 
enism. The  motive  of  the  Senate  in  limiting  the  right  of 
its  deities  to  grant  an  asylum  was  less  probably  a  desire 
of  shielding  the  community  against  criminals  than  of 
securing  themselves  against  slaves.     Some  of  the  latter, 

28  "The  temples  were  filled  with  the  worst  classes  of  slaves.  There 
persons  loaded  with  debt  took  refuge  against  creditors.  So  did  those 
suspected  of  capital  crimes,  nor  was  any  power  so  efficient  in  restraining 
popular  sedition,  or  human  wickedness,  as  the  divine  ceremonies  were  in 
protecting  them." — Tacitus,  An.  3,  GO. 

^^  "  The  Fathers,  weary  with  the  quantity  [of  embassies  concerning 
temples]  and  with  the  earnestness  of  the  strife,  intrusted  [the  whole 
matter  with  some  limitations]  to  the  consuls."  —  Tacitus,  An.  3,  U3. 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  21-37.  197 

while  protected  by  the  statue  of  the  "  Divine  Augustus," 
had  abused  their  masters,^^  to  the  amusement  perhaps  of 
the  popular  party.  Deference  to  the  divinity  of  Augustus 
would  be  severely  tested  in  not  ordering  their  seizure. 

In  A.  D.  23  two  occurrences  show  the  downward  ten- 
dency of  the  old  religion.  The  Senate  needed  to  vote  a 
heavy  pecuniary  gratuity  to  one  of  the  vestal  virgins, 
and  a  seat  among  them  at  the  theatre  to  the  emperor's 
mother,^^  as  a  means  of  diminishing  repugnance  towards 
the  office.  Another  event  of  the  same  year  calls  for  a 
prefatory  remark. 

Twelve  months  before  this,  Servius  Maluginensis,  priest 
of  Jupiter,  had  claimed  the  province  of  Asia,^''^  under,  as 
it  would  seem,  a  rule  of  the  Senate,  that  the  oldest  con- 
sular senator,  that  is,  the  one  who  had  longest  ago  held 
the  consulship,  should  be  entitled  to  that  province.  The 
rule  was  the  only  resource  perhaps  against  strife  between 
greedy  aspirants.  An  examination  of  law  showed  that 
the  priest  of  Jupiter  must  not  leave  Eome  for  more  than 
a  night  or  two  at  a  time,  and  Asia  was  awarded  to  the 
next  oldest  consular.^^  This  legal  discovery  was  likely 
enough  to  terminate  all  ambition  for  this  priesthood. 
Patrician  zeal  for  heathenism  had  no  intention  of  sacri- 
ficing a  governor's  perquisites  in  Asia  for  the  empty 
dignity  of  being  Jupiter's  priest. 

Maluginensis  was  now  (a.  d.  23)  dead,  and  the  Senate 
made  some  abatement  from  old  usage,  that  the  office 
might  find  an  incumbent.^'^    The  son  of  Maluginensis  was 


«>  Tacitus,  J7i.  3,  36. 

81  Tacitus,  Jn.  4,  16. 

®2  Tacitus,  An.  3,  58.  Augustus  or  the  aristocracy  revived,  in  b.  c.  11, 
during  the  reactionary  efforts  of  that  date,  the  priesthood  of  Jupiter,  which 
had  been  out  of  existence  for  seventy-six  years.  Since  that  date  Servius 
Maluginensis  had  been  the  only  incumbent. 

^  Tacitus,  An.  3,  71.  The  incumbent  had  been  thirty-three  years  in 
office  without  knowledge  of  this  rule.  Obviously  neither  he  nor  others 
had  given  it  a  thought  until  a  monetary  reason  for  its  consideration  arose. 

^*  Tacitus  saves  senatorial  orthodoxy  by  attributing  to  Tiberius  the 
proposal  for  modifying  ancient  usage. 


198  JUDAISM  AT   HOME.  [CH.  VIIL 

temporarily  substituted  suffedus  in  his  father's  place.^ 
Sixteen  years  later,  in  A.  D.  39,  a  question  touching  tlie 
priest  of  Jupiter  seems  to  imply  that  this  son,  or  some 
one  else,  was  then  in  office ;  but,  with  this  exception,  the 
priest  of  Jupiter  disappears  from  history. 

In  A.  D.  24  augury,  the  only  relic  of  what  might  be 
called  public  religious  service  at  Rome,  came  to  an  end.^^ 
It  was  not  revived  during  a  quarter  of  a  century.  The 
public  or  patrician  religion  was  wholly  disconnected  from 
morality,  benevolence,  or  hopes  of  a  future  life,  and  with 
its  extinguishment  not  a  soul  would  in  these  respects 
have  felt  itself  worse  off.^"  It  liad  been  upheld  by  a 
political  faction  merely  for  political  objects.  Its  tempo- 
rary death  did  not  prevent  prosecutions  for  unbelief 
against  members  of  the  popular  party,  a  noteworthy 
instance  of  which  will  reappear  in  our  next  section. 

The  plottings  of  the  aristocracy  against  Tiberius,  and 
their  rebellion  in  A.  D.  31,  are  not  historically  connected 
with  monotheism,  except  by  prosecutions  for  unbelief 
against  persons  whose  names,  with  one  exception,  have 
not  been  preserved.  An  account  of  this  rebellion  will 
be  found  in  the  Appendix,  Note  G,  §  ill. 

In  A.  D.  32  a  production  in  the  name  of  Sibylla  was 
added  to  the  public  collection.^^  This  may  indicate  that 
the  rebellion  of  A.  D.  31,  equally  as  that  of  a.  d.  19,  20, 
was  followed  by  reaction  against  the  old  religion. 

35  Tacitus,  An.  4,  16.  Compare  the  use  of  suffedus-  in  the  consular 
lists. 

2s  In  A.  D.  49,  augury,  according  to  Tacitus  (An.  12,  23),  had  been 
disused  for  twenty-five  years.  Compare  touching  it  an  extract  from 
Strabo  with  comments,  on  pp.  175,  176.  Strabo  calls  it  "Etruscan 
divination." 

^  If  Christian  churches  were  without  teaching,  mere  refuge-places  for 
crime  or  misfortune,  into  which  no  officer  of  the  law  dare  intrude,  they 
would  in  so  far  resemble  heathen  temples. 

28  Tacitus,  An.  6,  12.     Compare  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  120. 


§in.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  37-41.  199 


§  in.     A.  D.  37  -  41.     Caligula. 

1.  HIS   CHARACTER. 

The  character  of  Caligula,  equally  as  that  of  Tiberius, 
needs  to  be  ascertained  by  sifting  a  mass  of  misrepresen- 
tation. A  prominent  trait  in  it  was  kindliness,  with 
which  impatience  may  sometimes,  though  not  seriously, 
have  interfered.  This  trait  of  kindliness  belonged  to  him 
in  childhood ;  and  the  appellation  bestowed  on  him  by 
the  soldiery  ^9  of  Caligula,  that  is,  "Little-Boots,"  seems  to 
have  been  one  of  affection.  At  his  accession  the  multi- 
tude showered  upon  him  the  epithets,  not  of  servility  nor 
yet  of  deference  towards  a  superior,  but  of  endearment  ^^ 
as  towards  a  loved  child.  His  illness  caused  widespread 
sympathy,*^  unless  among  the  aristocracy,  and  after  his 

*'  "It  was  to  the  pleasantry  of  the  soldiers  in  camp  that  he  owed  the 
name  of  Caligula.  .  .  .  How  much  his  education  amongst  them  recom- 
mended him  to  their  favor  and  affection  was  sufficiently  apparent  in  the 
mutiny  upon  the  death  of  Augustus,  when  the  mere  sight  of  him  appeased 
their  fury,  though  it  had  risen  to  a  great  height.  For  they  persisted  in 
it,  until  they  observed  that  he  was  sent  away  to  a  neighboring  city,  to 
secure  him  against  all  danger.  Then,  at  last,  they  began  to  relent,  and, 
stopping  the  chariot  in  which  he  was  conveyed,  earnestly  deprecated  the 
odium  to  which  such  a  proceeding  would  expose  them."  —  Sueton.  Galig. 
c.  9,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

*°  Sueton.  Calig.  13.  Epithets  of  this  nature  scarcely  admit  transla- 
tion.    Comi)are  on  p.  224,  popular  love  for  him  after  his  death. 

*^  "Accordingly,  when  the  news  was  spread  abroad  that  he  was  sick, 
.  .  .  every  house  and  every  city  became  full  of  depression  and  melan- 
choly. .  .  .  When  his  disease  began  to  abate,  in  a  very  short  time  even 
the  men  who  were  living  on  the  very  confines  of  the  empire  heard  of  it 
and  rejoiced,  .  .  .  every  city  was  full  of  suspense  and  expectation,  being 
continually  eager  for  better  news,  .  .  .  each  thinking  the  health  of  Caius 
to  be  his  own  salvation ;  and  this  feeling  pervaded  every  continent  and 
every  island,  for  no  one  can  recollect  so  great  and  general  a  joy  affecting 
any  one  country  or  any  one  nation,  at  the  good  health  or  prosperity  of 
their  governor,  as  now  pervaded  the  whole  of  the  habitable  world  at  the 
recovery  of  Caius."  — Philo,  Embassy  to  Caius,  c.  3,  Bohn's  trans.  (Paris 
edit.  pp.  682,  683).     The  foregoing  is  from  Caligula's  enemy.     "When 


200  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

death  the  senatorial  faction  which  had  prompted  could 
not  protect  his  murderers.  His  kindheartedness  did  not 
diminish  with  years.  When  public  amusement  had  caused 
murder,  he  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  at  its  inhumanity.*^ 
He  must  have  concluded  that  to  such  a  set  even  sham 
fights  were  harmful,  for  he  sold  off  the  remaining  gladi- 
ators.*^ He  seems,  however,  to  have  catered  liberally  for 
public  amusement  by  shows  of  wild  beasts**  and  by  in- 
stituting theatricals  in  different  parts  of  the  city,*^  in 
hopes  perhaps  of  reclaiming  the  multitude  from  more 
brutal  tastes. 

The  sale  of  his  valuables  was  due  doubtless  to  the 
above  trait.  He  had  visited  the  army  in  Gaul  more  than 
a  year  before  his  death,  and  must  have  found  there  the 
customary  evil  of  soldiers  cheated  and  plundered  by  their 
officers ;  an  evil  wherewith  better  administrative  abilities 
than  his  have  been  puzzled  to  cope,  and  from  which  some 
modern  European  armies  are  by  no  means  free.  He  there- 
upon transported  to  Lyons  the  valuables  collected  in  his 
palace,  sold  them  at  auction,  and  used  the  proceeds  for 

he  fell  ill,  the  people  hung  about  the  Palatium  all  night  long ;  some 
vowed,  in  public  hand-bills,  to  risk  their  lives  in  the  combats  of  the 
amphitheatre,  and  others  to  lay  them  down,  for  his  recovery."  —  Sueton. 
Calig.  c.  14,  Bohn's  trans. 

Josephus,  amidst  some  contradictory  statements,  says  of  Caligula,  that 
"  he  was  also  more  skilful  in  persuading  others  to  very  great  things  than 
any  one  else,  and  this  from  a  natural  affability  of  temper  which  had 
been  improved  by  much  exercise  and  painstaking." — Josephus,  Antiq. 
19,  2,  5,  Whiston's  trans.  And  mentions  {Ibid.)  that  he  "was  a  slave  to 
the  commendations  of  the  populace  "  ;  with  which  remark,  however,  com- 
pare  the  last  paragraph  of  note  72. 

*2  See  Sueton.  Calig.  30,  cited  in  Ch.  V.  note  7. 

*3  Dio  Cass.  59, 14.  Compare  Sueton.  Calig.  39  (or  in  Bohn's  trans.  38). 

**  Dio  Cass.  59,  13;  cornjiare  59,  7. 

*^  "He  frequently  entertained  the  people  with  stage-plays  of  various 
kinds  and  in  several  parts  of  the  city."  —  Sueton.  Calig.  18,  Bohn's  trans. 
"  At  first  he  was  a  spectator  and  listener,  joining  in  approbation  or  dis- 
approbation as  if  he  were  one  of  the  crowd ;  subsequently  ...  he  did 
not  go  to  the  theatre."  —  Dio  Cass.  59,  .">.  His  relative  Pomponius 
strove  (Pliny,  Jun.  7,  17,  ll)  to  make  these  a  success. 


5  III.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  37-41.  201 

his  soldiers,*^  cashiering  at  the  same  time  not  a  few  cen- 
turions who  had  either  been  iDCCulating,*^  or  engaged  in 
conspiracy  against  himself. 

His  directions  to  the  soldiery  after  a  parade,  that  they 
should  collect  spoils  from  the  ocean,  namely,  its  shells,^^ 
meant  evidently  that  he  wished  them  to  have  a  good  time 
and  enjoy  themselves.  The  procedure  was  followed  by  a 
donation  to  each  of  them. 

Affectionateness  is  rarely  lacking  in  a  kindly  disposi- 
tion, and  in  Caligula  the  affections  seem  to  have  been 
strong.^^  If  his  selection  of  a  seat  for  his  infant  daugh- 
ter be  a  true  indication  of  his  aims  in  her  behalf,  then 
affectionateness  was  mingled  with  true  aspirations. 

Another  prominent  feature  in  Caligula  was  a  keen 
.appreciation  of  the  ludicrous,  and  a  tendency  to  give 
humorous  rather  than  correct  reasons  for  his  conduct. 
Thus  for  a  practical  and  suthcient  reason  he  enclosed  a 

*^  "  Sending  for  the  most  beautiful  and  expensive  of  the  princely  valu- 
ables, he  sold  them  at  auction.  .  .  .  Yet  he  did  not  lay  up  anything  but 
expended  it  on  —  aside  from  other  things —  .  .  .  the  armies." — Dio 
Cass.  59,  21,  22.  The  context  specifies  articles  received  from  his  father 
and  mother,  from  his  gi-andfather  and  gi'eat-grandfathers.  Suetonius 
{Calig.  39)  treats  the  sale  as  consisting  of  furniture  from  the  old  palace 
aula,  and  gives  an  exaggerated,  or  perhaps  fabricated,  account  of  incon- 
venience suffered  at  Rome  by  abstraction  of  teams  to  transjiort  it. 

*''  "  He  deprived  of  their  companies  most  of  the  centurions  of  the  first 
rank,  who  had  now  served  their  legal  time  in  the  wars,  and  some  whose 
time  would  have  expired  in  a  few  days ;  alleging  against  them  their  age 
and  infirmity  [?];  and  railing  at  the  covetous  disposition  of  the  rest  of 
them."  —  Suetonius,  Calig.  c.  44,  Bohn's  trans. 

*8  Sueton.  Calig.  c.  46. 

**  "He  loved  with  a  most  passionate  and  constant  aff"ection  [his  wife] 
Csesonia,  who  was  neither  handsome  nor  young."  —  Sueton.  Calig.  25, 
Bohn's  trans.  The  same  is  implied  in  his  eccentric  remark  (Sueton. 
Calig.  33),  that  he  would  have  to  put  her  to  the  torture  to  ascertain  what 
made  him  love  her  so.  He  is  mentioned  (Sueton.  Calig.  25)  as  carrying, 
outside  of  home,  his  infant  child ;  and  the  fact  that  he  placed  her  in  the 
lap  of  Minerva,  rather  than  in  that  of  any  other  goddess,  indicates  per- 
haps his  wishes  in  her  behalf.  Compare  Suetonius,  Calig.  25,  with  Dio 
Cassius,  59,  28,  and  Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  1,  2. 
9* 


202  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VIIL 

passage  from  his  domicile  to  the  temple  of  Castor  and 
Pollux.  His  assigned  reason  for  so  doing  was,  that  he 
might  have  them  for  door-keepers.^*^  His  feeble-minded 
uncle  Claudius  engaged  in  conspiracy  against  him,  but, 
owing  probably  to  good  feeling  in  Caligula,  was  not  pun- 
ished. The  statement  of  Suetonius,  that  he  reserved  him 
for  a  laughing  stock,^^  may  have  been  the  reason  assigned 
by  his  nephew. 

Caligula's  unsound  nervous  organization,  combined  with 
sleeplessness,^^  occasioned  or  aggravated  impatience.  He 
was  aware  of  the  tendency,  for  he  regarded  his  child  as  in- 
heriting it  from  himself  ^^  Tliis  impatience  may  not  only 
have  mingled  with  his  denunciation  of  aristocratic  crime,^ 
his  utterances  of  contempt  for  aristocratic  hobbies,^^  and 


S"  On  an  edge  of  the  Palatine  Hill  (Findlay's  Atlas,  map  2)  stood  the 
palace  of  Caligula.  In  the  valley,  at  a  distance  of  from  two  hundred  to 
four  hundred  yards,  was  the  Roman  Forum.  The  difference  in  alti- 
tude was  (see  Smith,  Did.  of  Gcog.  Vol.  2,  p.  721,  col.  2)  less  than  one 
hundred  feet.  Between  the  two  was  the  temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux, 
fronting  towards  the  Forum  and  reached  by  a  high  flight  of  steps,  from 
which  orators  sometimes  (Smith,  Diet,  of  Geog.  Vol.  2,  p.  783,  col.  2) 
addressed  tlie  multitude  below.  The  temple  was  frequently  used  (Cicero, 
In  Verrem,  Act.  2,  Lib.  1,  49)  for  senatorial,  and  daily  for  judicial,  busi- 
ness. Caligula,  from  motives  of  health  or  convenience,  made  a  covered 
passage  (Sueton.  Calig.  c.  22 ;  Dio  Cassius,  59,  28),  to  this  temple,  and  a 
doorway,  if  none  previously  existed,  in  its  rear.  It  rendered  attention 
to  business  in  the  temple,  and,  perhaps,  access  to  the  Forum,  much  easier. 
Caligula's  frequent  presence  in  the  temple  or  its  portico  may  have  origi- 
nated the  story  of  his  exhibiting  himself  between  the  two  deities. 

61  Sueton.  Calig.  23. 

62  Caligula  was  unable  (Sueton.  CaHg.  50)  to  sleep  more  than  three 
hours  in  a  night  and  then  not  soundly. 

63  "  He  tliought  its  excitability  the  surest  proof  that  it  was  his  child." 
—  Sueton.  Calig.  25. 

6*  See  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-notes  96  and  114. 

66  The  senatorial  faction  idolized  Agrippa,  Avho,  under  Augustus,  had 
been  its  unscrupulous  and  successful  leader.  Caligula  decried  Agrippa, 
and  wished  no  praise  for  being  his  grandson.  The  Senate  worshipped 
Augustus,  and,  that  it  might  sway  Caligula  to  its  purposes,  ernployed  a 
mob  who  should  praise  him  (Dio  Cass.  59,  13)  as  the  young  Augustus. 


§in.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  37-41.  203 

of  indignation  at  venal  or  partisan  lawyers  and  courts,^^ 
but  with  his  criticisms  of  things  disconnected  from  poli- 
tics.^'' 

We  cannot  pronounce  with  the  same  certainty  on  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  each  specific  act  or  word  attributed  to 
an  impulsive  though  good-hearted  being,  as  we  can  in 
dealing  with  a  well-balanced  character.  Careless  utter- 
ances, with  no  other  object  than  temporary  amusement, 
were  natural  to  such  a  disposition  as  Caligula's.  These 
often  needed  but  slight  perversion  to  give  them  an  ap- 
pearance of  seriousness  and  importance  which  they  did 
not  deserve.  He  may,  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign, 
have  humorously  commented  on  it  as  not  distinguished 
like  that  of  his  predecessors  by  any  great  calamity .^^ 

Caligula,  however,  treated  the  victories  of  Augustus  at  Actium  and  Sicily 
as  calamitous  to  the  Roman  people.  (See  Sueton.  Calig.  23 ;  Dio  Cass. 
59,  20.)  He  preferred  to  be  considered  a  descendant  of  Antony  rather  than 
of  Augustus ;  that  is,  a  member  of  the  popular  rather  than  of  the  patrician 
party.  The  aristocracy  already,  perhaps,  as  at  a  later  date,  treated  admira- 
tion of  Homer  as  a  test  of  heathen  orthodoxy.  Virgil's  perversion  of  the 
Erythrsean  verses  must  have  been  grateful  in  their  eyes.  Caligula  expressed 
contempt  for  both.  "He  had  thoughts  (')...  of  suppressing  Homer's 
poems.  'For  why,'  said  he,  'may  I  not  do  what  Plato  has  done  before 
me,  who  excluded  him  from  his  commonwealth  ? '  He  was  likewise  very 
near  (?)  banishing  the  writings  and  the  busts  of  Virgil  and  Livy  from  all 
libraries ;  censuring  one  of  them  as  '  a  man  of  no  genius  and  very  little 
learning ' ;  and  the  other  as  ' a  verbose  and  careless  historian.'  "  —  Sue- 
ton.  Calig.  c.  34,  Bohn's  trans. 

^  "  He  often  talked  of  the  lawyers  as  if  he  intended  to  abolish  their 
profession.  '  By  Hercules ! '  he  would  say,  '  I  shall  put  it  out  of  their 
power  to  answer  any  questions  in  law,  otherwise  than  by  referring  to 
me ! '  " —  Sueton.  Cnlig.  34,  Bohn's  trans.  The  circumstance  most  likely 
to  have  prompted  these  remarks  was  as  follows :  The  lawyers  seem  to 
have  hunted  up  precedent  or  authority  for  compelling  condemned  persons 
to  murder  each  other ;  see  note  72,  and  Ch.  V.  notes  8,  9. 

5^  When  Caligula  found  the  roads  under  Vespasian's  care  coated  with 
mud  he  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  in  the  utterance :  Stuff  his  pockets  with 
it  (Dio  Cass.  59,  12;  Sueton.  Vcspas.  5),  or,  more  literally,  "his  bosom," 
which  the  Romans  used  for  a  pocket.  Seneca  was  admired.  Caligula 
treated  his  language  as  "sand  without  lime."  —  Sueton.  Calig.  53. 

®*  "  He  used  also  to  complain  aloud  of  the  state  of  the  times,  because 


204  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

He  may,  when  building  a  dwelling  near  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Capitolinus,^^  have  indulged  in  some  pleasantry 
about  messing  with  him,  or  may,  in  a  humorous  moment, 
have  addressed  him  some  question  and  pretended  to  listen 
for  an  answer  ;^'^  yet  the  offensive  portions  of  his  sayings, 
and  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  cruelties  and  vices  attributed  to 
him,  must  be  fabrications  or  misrepresentations.  Seneca, 
though  over-willing  to  disparage  him,  nowhere,  I  think, 
attributes  to  him  personal  vices  or  crimes. 

The  public  improvements  which  Caligula  planned,  or 
executed,  are,  to  a  degree  at  least,  evidence  of  laudable 
aims,^^  while  his  personal  superintendence  of  workmen,^^ 

it  was  not  rendered  remarkable  by  anj'  public  calamities ;  for,  while  the 
reign  of  Augustus  had  been  made  memorable  to  posterity  by  the  disaster 
of  Varus,  and  that  of  Tiberius  by  the  fall  of  the  theatre  at  FidenfR,  his 
was  likely  to  pass  into  oblivion  from  an  uninterrupted  series  of  pros- 
perity." —  Sueton.  Calig.  31,  Bohn's  trans. 

69  Caligula  lived  on  one  hill  and  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  in 
which  the  Senate  usually  met,  was  on  another.  He  first  "united  the 
palace  and  Capitol  by  a  bridge  thrown  above  the  temple  of  the  divine 
Augustus.  Afterwards,  that  he  might  be  nearer  [to  senatorial  business], 
he  laid  the  foundations  of  a  new  dwelling  in  the  Capitoline  area."  — 
Sueton.  Calig.  22. 

^°  Caligula  "  chatted  secretly  with  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  sometimes 
whispering  and  then  in  turn  holding  his  ear,  then  speaking  in  a  louder 
tone  and  occasionally  disputing  with  him,  .  .  .  until  over-urged,  as^  he 
alleged,  and  voluntarily  invited  to  become  [Jupiter's]  tent-fellow."  — 
Sueton.  CaJig.  22. 

«i  "  He  completed  the  works  which  were  left  unfinished  by  Tiberius, 
namely,  the  temple  of  Augustus  and  the  theatre  of  Pompey.  He  began, 
likewise,  the  aqueduct  from  the  neighborhood  of  Tibur,  and  an  amphi- 
theatre near  the  Septa.  .  .  .  The  walls  of  Syracuse,  which  had  fallen 
to  decay  by  length  of  time,  he  repaired,  as  he  likewise  did  the  temples 
of  the  gods.  He  formed  plans  for  rebuilding  the  palace  of  Polycrates 
at  Samos,  finishing  the  temple  of  the  Didyma;an  Apollo  at  Miletus,  and 
building  a  town  on  a  ridge  of  the  Alps;  but,  above  all,  for  cutting 
through  the  isthmus  in  Achaia ;  and  even  sent  a  centurion  of  the  first 
rank  to  measure  out  the  work."  — Sueton.  Calig.  21,  Bohn's  trans.  On 
visiting  the  Gallic  sea-coast,  in  the  neighborhood  probably  of  Boulogne, 
he  erected  (Sueton.  Calig.  46)  a  lighthouse. 

62  Philo  mentions  {Emhassy  to  Cuius,  45,   Paris  edit.  pp.  732,  lines 


§m.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAKRATIVE,  A.  D.  37-4L  205 

and  his  attention  at  judicial  tribunals  or  in  the  Senate,^ 
indicate  industry  which  approximated,  and  perhaps 
equalled,  his  physical  capacity.  His  administrative  abil- 
ity may  not  have  been  ^'ery  high,  and  his  expenditure,  in 
one  instance,  seems,  at  least,  like  extravagance.^  Yet,  in 
judging  his  financial  management,  discrimination  should 
be  exercised  between  his  own  drains  on  his  treasury  and 
the  thefts  from  it  which  illness,  inexperience,  or  lack  of 
special  gifts  disabled  him  from  preventing.  Treasury 
thie\'es  were  thankful  after  his  death  to  find  in  his  alleged 
disbursements  the  sole  explanation  of  his  empty  treas- 
^j.y  65  jjj  judging  liis  character,  facts,  which  seem  credi- 
ble, should  be  carefully  dissociated  from  the  interpretation 
affixed  to  them  by  his  enemies. 

2.  ORDER  OF   EVENTS   IN   HIS  REIGN. 

Caligula's  reign  is  no  longer  extant  in  the  Annals  of 
Tacitus.    The  order  of  its  events  may,  even  if  imperfectly 

26-20,  733,  lines  8-ll)  that  Caligula,  while  listening  to  him  and  his  op- 
ponents,  was  superintending  work  then  under  way  in  the  palace.  Com- 
pare later  exaggerations  and  fictions  in  Suetonius,  Ccilig.  37. 

63  Dio  Cass.  59,  18. 

^  "He  made  a  bridge,  of  about  three  [Roman]  miles  and  a  half  in 
length,  from  Baite  to  the  mole  of  Puteoli,  collecting  trading  vessels  from 
all  quarters,  mooring  them  in  two  rows  by  their  anchors,  and  spreading 
earth  upon  them  to  form  a  viaduct  after  the  fashion  of  the  Appian  Way. 
This  bridge  he  crossed  and  recrossed  for  two  days  together."  —  Sueto- 
nius, Calig.  19,  Bohn's  trans.  Some  practical  reason,  sufficient  or  in- 
sufficient, may  have  existed  for  this  structure.  He  may  have  wished  to 
test  the  applicability  of  floating  bridges  elsewhere  in  the  empire.  Some 
must  have  thought  (Sueton.  Ibid. )  that  he  was  testing  their  applicability 
to  the  Rhine. 

6^  The  alleged  gift  by  Caligula  to  Antiochus  of  Commagene  (Sueton. 
Calig.  16 ;  compare  Dio  Cass.  60  8)  is  one  of  the  larger  items  invented 
by  treasury  thieves.  Caligula  found  a  full  treasury  at  his  accession, 
paid  large  legacies  of  Tiberius  from  it,  and  nine  months  afterwards  (Dio 
Cass.  59,  2)  it  was  empty.  The  date  was  during,  or  at  the  close  of,  his 
dangerous  illness,  when  his  revenue  from  Egypt  had,  perhaps,  been  in- 
tercepted by  the  conspirators  there.  Yet  shortly  afterwards,  in  A.  D.  38, 
when  a  large  fire  occurred,  he  had  means  to  indemnify  the  sufi'crers. 


206  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIH. 

stated,  aid  some  readers  and  serve  as  a  starting-point  for 
subsequent  inquirers. 

A.  D.  37.  March  17?  or  27?  until  in  August. 
Caligula  utters  a  funeral  oration  on  Tiberius  ;  pays  his 
legacies ;  brings  home  the  remains  of  his  own  mother ; 
burns  the  testimony  of  her  accusers,  who  had  also  been 
her  accomplices ;  effects,  between  contending  factions,  a 
truce,  which  includes  cessation  of  trials  for  unl^elief  [in 
the  heathen  deities] ;  sets  Herod  at  liberty.  September  1 
to  December  31,  Caligula  ill.  Conspiracy  of  Herod  and 
the  Jewish  aristocracy  at  Alexandria,  prompted  and  sup- 
ported by  the  Eoman  Senate,  breaks  out  in  October.^ 
They  kidnap  Flaccus. 

A.  D.  38.  Caligula  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  still 
convalescent.^'^  Philo's  embassy  to  Caligula  in  midwin- 
ter. Macro  intrusted  with  investigation  and  settlement 
of  matters  at  Alexandria.  Drusilla,  sister  of  Caligula,  dies. 
The  conspiracy  at  Alexandria  having  been  put  down, 
its  leaders  are  punished.  Alexander,  Philo's  brother,  put 
under  arrest.  Macro  is  prohaUy  assassinated  by  conspi- 
rators as  a  means  of  screening  themselves. 

A  D.  39.  The  patricians  (to  screen  themselves)  recom- 
mence prosecutions  which  had  been  suspended.  Domitius 
Afer,  a  popular  leader,  prosecuted,  but  acquitted.  Consuls 
at  Rome  (August  31)  resign  or  are  dismissed.  Popular 
election  resorted  to.  Domitius  Afer  elected  consul.  Sen- 
ators charge  against  Tiberius  the  prosecutions  instituted 
by  themselves  in  his  reign.  Caligula  convicts  them  from 
their  own  records.     Leaves  Rome  (the  same  day  ?)^^  for 

^  Flaccus  (cp.  pp.  97,  100,  101)  was  kidnapped  during  the  feast  of 
tabernacles  within  a  year  from  the  death  of  Tiberius. 

<>7  Caligula  was  consul  in  37,  39,  40,  and  41,  but  not  in  38.  This  ac- 
cords with  inability  to  assume  that  office  on  the  first  of  January.  The 
consuls,  in  their  official  oath  (January  1),  did  not  (Dio  Cass.  59,  si)  in- 
clude what  Tiberius  had  established,  perhaps  because  Caligula  could  not 
yet  superintend  matters. 

^  Caligula,  after  reproving  the  Senate,  "went  out  the  same  day  into 
the  suburbs."  —  Dio  Cass.  59,  16.  "He  did  not  foreannounco  his 
departure,  but,  going  into  a  suburb,  he  suddenly  set  out."  —  Dio  Cass. 
59,  U.     Other  events  are  interposed  by  Dio  between  these  two. 


§in.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  37-41.  207 

the  armies  of  Gaul  and  Germany.  Goes  for  a  time  beyond 
the  Iihine.     Visits  the  north  coast  of  Gaul. 

A.  D.  40.  Caligula,  January  1,  is  at  Lyous.^  Remains 
in  Gaul,  or  its  neighborhood,  until  about  September. 
The  aristocracy  persecute  the  popular  party  and  prepare 
for  rebellion.  Caligula  returns  to  Eome  about  Septem- 
ber.'^ Puts  two  or  three  conspirators  or  persecutors  to 
death  and  banishes  a  considerable  number.  Aims  at  a 
more  popular  form  of  government. 

A.  D.  41.     Caligula  is  murdered  January  24. 

Of  the  above  events,  the  conspiracy,  in  a.  d.  37,  has 
been  elsewhere  narrated."^  Later  occurrences  need  a 
fuller  statement.  The  death  of  Macro,  though  it  re- 
moved the  person  best  able  to  aid  Caligula,  did  not  free 
from  danger  the  patrician  instigators  of  what  had  oc- 
curred at  Alexandria.  To  save  themselves,  they,  as  in 
A.  D.  31,  strove  to  intimidate  opponents  by  prosecutions.'*^ 

69  Sueton.  Calig.  17. 

"^  Suetonius  (Calig.  49)  says  that  he  entered  the  city  on  his  birthday, 
less  than  four  months  before  he  perished.  His  birthday  was,  according 
to  Dio  Cassius  (59,  6),  September  20.  His  death  was  January  24.  A  dif- 
ferent account  (Dio  Cassius,  59,  7  ;  Sueton.  Calig.  8)  makes  August  31 
his  birthday  ;  but  this  would  have  been  nearly  five  montlis  before  his 
death. 

"  See  Ch.  V.  §  viii. 

''^  A  commencement  of  prosecutions  must  have  been  made  (Dio  Cassius, 
59,  10  and  close  of  ll)  in  the  latter  part  of  A.  D.  38.  "In  those  days 
[January,  A.  D.  39]  and  subsequently  many  prominent  men  being  con- 
demned were  punished ;  not  a  few  of  these,  from  among  such  as  had 
[at  the  beginning  of  Caligula's  reign]  been  set  at  liberty,  [being  now 
condemned]  on  the  same  charges  on  which  they  had  been  made  prisoners 
in  the  time  of  Tiberius.  Many  of  the  others  [the  less  distinguished] 
were  put  to  death  fighting  duels  [by  compulsion] ;  and  aside  from  mur- 
ders nothing  was  taking  place. 

"[Caligula]  conceded  no  favor  to  the  multitude  [the  hired  mob?], 
but  [when  it  clamored  for  victims  ?]  did  the  reverse  of  what  it  wished. 
.  .  .  On  one  occasion,  threatening  the  whole  people  [a  euphemism  for  the 
mob],  he  said,  ' /  wish  that  you  had  hut  one  neck.'  "  —  Dio  Cass.  59, 18. 
The  wish  was  prompted,  not  by  cruelty,  but  by  indignation  at  their  blood- 
thirstiness. 


208  JUDAISM  AT. ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

Among  their  intended  victims  was  Domitius  Afer,  a  reso- 
lute popular  leader  and  distinguished  orator,  who  proved 
able  to  cope  with  and  baffle  them.'^ 

The  patricians  seem  to  have  employed  a  mob,  which 
should  clamor  for  what  Caligula  could  not  grant,  that  is, 
probably,  for  death,  in  the  amphitheatre,  of  men  con- 
demned by  patrician  courts,  or  disagreeable  to  patricians. 
We  are  specially  told  that  they  clamored  for  "prose- 
cutors." '^* 

The  aristocracy  had  contrived  indirect  methods  for 
swaying,  if  possible,  Caligula  to  their  purposes.  The 
mob  had  been  taught  to  call  him  the  Young  Augustus. 
His  comment  thereon  has  already  been  given.'^^ 

If  arrogance,  or  love  of  adulation,  had  been  strong  in 
Caligula,  he  would  have  shown  it  in  the  contest  now 
commenced,  and  of  whose  import  he  was  fully  aware. '^^ 
Yet  he  evinces  a  singular  freedom  from  such  a  trait. 
When  rebuking  the  Senate  for  its  misrepresentation  of 
Tiberius,  his  words  were :  "  Towards  me,  who  am  yet  in 
office,  such  conduct  might  be  permissible,  but  you  are 
committing  no  ordinary  injustice  in  thus  maligning  your 
former  ruler."  '^''  At  a  later  date  he  ordered  that  to  the 
birthdays  of  Tiberius  and  Drusilla  equal  public  respect 
should  be  shown  as  to  that  of  Augustus ;  '^  but  of  respect 

"'^  "Among  the  accused  was  Domitius  Afer,  whose  peril  was  unex- 
pected, and  his  escape  more  wonderful."  —  Dio  Cass.  59, 10,  Compare, 
in  regard  to  him,  Tacitus,  An.  4,  52. 

■i*  Dio  Cass.  59,  13.  Compare,  touching  prosecutors,  Appendix,  Note 
C.  Probably  the  prosecutors  thus  clamored  for  were  acting  on  behalf  of 
the  popular  party.  It  was  doubtless  in  some  such  case  or  cases  that  Calig- 
ula commended  (Sueton.  Calig.  29)  his  own  inflexibility. 

TO  See  note  55. 

™  After  convicting  the  Senate  of  murders  which  it  was  charging  upon 
Tiberius,  Caligula  represented  the  latter,  though  dead,  as  saying  to  him  : 
"  They  [the  senators]  all  hate  you  and  desire  your  death"  (Dio  Cass. 
59,  16)  ;  and  in  his  subsequent  letter  from  Gaul,  "  He  wrote  ...  to  the 
Senate  as  if  he  had  escaped  a  great  conspiracy."  — Dio  Cass.  59,  23. 

"  Dio  Cass.  59, 16. 

''^  Dio  Cass.  59,  24.  This  meant  that  the  feelings  of  the  popular  party 
should  be  respected  equally  as  those  of  the  patricians. 


§111.]  CHEONOLOGICAL  NAEKATIVE,  A.  D.   37-41.  209 

towards  his  own  birthday  he  omits  any  mention.  These 
are  not  the  sayings  of  an  arrogant  or  vainglorious  man, 
and  the  veneration  which  he  more  than  once  showed  for 
one  so  unlike  himself  in  many  respects  as  the  Emperor 
Tiberius,  should  weigh  not  a  little  in  determining  his  own 
aims  and  desires. 

Caligula,  in  visiting,  without  prior  notice,  the  armies  of 
Gaul  and  Germany,  was  prompted  by  knowledge  of  a 
conspiracy  already  under  way  there,  lieaded  by  members 
of  his  own  family.  Otticers  in  those  armies  were  in  syni- 
])athy  with  it  and  needed  elimination.'^  The  common 
soldiers,  as  in  A.  D.  14,  showed  no  predilection  for  aristo- 
cratic plans.  Two  sisters  of  Caligula  —  the  two  to  wliom 
he  had  not  intrusted  the  government  during  his  illness 
—  were  concerned  in  the  rebellion,  and  were,  on  that 
account,  banished.^**  Probably  some  of  the  Gallic  aris- 
tocracy co-operated  or  had  been  co-operating  with  that 
of  Iiome.^^  When  patricians  gained  power,  after  Caligula's 
death,  they,  though  not  immediately,  elected  members  of 
tlie  Gallic  aristocracy  to  seats  in  the  Senate.^^ 

Whether  at  Home  during  Caligula's  absence  the  Senate 
attempted  open  rebellion  is  not  clear.  Its  preparations 
had  unquestionably  been  made.  Among  its  acts  of  ter- 
rorism for  intimidating  the  popular  party,  there  is  one 
of  which  the  details  are  scanty,  but  it  is  almost  the  only 
prosecution  in  this  reign  of  which  any  details  whatever 
have  been  vouchsafed  us. 

Pomponius,  a  relative  of  Caligula,  was  a  poet  of  cul- 
ture and  learning,  an  intimate  friend  of  the  elder  Pliny, 
who  wrote  his  life.^^     A  remark  of  his  biographer,  in- 

^'  Suetonius  {Calig.  44)  mentions  the  dismissal  of  officers,  assigning, 
however,  as  reasons  what  must  have  been  patrician  mi-srejiresentations. 

^  Sueton.  Calig.  24  ;  Dio  Cass.  59,  22. 

^^  Caligula  "murdered  [?]  some  [in  Gaul]  as  plotting  revolution,  others 
as  conspirators  against  himself,  .  .  .  commanding  the  wealthiest  of  them 
[the  Gauls]  to  be  put  to  death."  —  Dio  Cass.  59,  21,  22. 

*^  Tacitus,  An.  11,  23-25.  Compare  the  sympathy  of  the  Jewish  with 
the  Roman  aristocracy  in  Ch.  V.  §  viir. 

^3  Tacitus,  An.  5,  8.  Pliny,  Sen.,  Nat.  Hist.  7,  18,  3;  Pliny,  Jun. 
3,  5,  o.     "  In    our  times  [a.  d.  74]  Pomponius  Secundus  fully  equals 

N 


210  JUDAISxM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

signia  .  .  .  cognoscuntur  .  .  .  in  Pompo7iio  considari  poeta 
niDiquam  ritdasse,  seems  fairly  to  imply  that  his  habits 
of  eating  and  diiukiiig  must  have  been  temperate.     His 

Domitius  Afer  in  dignity  or  enduring  fame. " — de  Orator.  Dial.  13.  Pliny 
mentions  (14,  6,  3)  having  in  his  Life  of  Pomponiiis  described  a  supper 
given  by  the  latter  to  Caligula,  ccenainque  quam  Princijn  [Princeps  ?]  illi 
dedit.  As  this  supper  took  place  A.  D.  40  or  41  (one  hundred  and  sixty 
years  after  the  consulship  of  L.  Opimius),  it  may  be  a  question  whether 
some  transcriber  has  not  substituted  Principi  for  Pn'nccjjs.  If  so,  the  sup- 
per described  by  Pliny  was  the  one  given  to  Pomponius  by  Caligula.  The 
former  was  at  that  date  in  no  condition  to  make  a  feast.  According  to 
Dio  Cassius(59,29),  Caligula  "made  a  certain  feast  in  the  palace  [in  A.  D. 
41].  .  .  .  Pomponius  Secundus,  then  consul,  was  carried  in  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  provisions  were  placed  on  the  table.  Sitting  [reclining  ?] 
at  the  feet  of  Caligula,  and  iiriffK-qiTTw,  leaning  on  them  constantly,  he 
tenderly  kissed  them."  The  fact  that  he  was  carried  in,  and  the  fact 
mentioned  by  Seneca,  that  he  was  subsequently  helpless  to  give  himself 
a  drink  of  water,  suggest  that  he,  equally  as  his  w  ife  cr  freedwoman,  had 
been  crippled  by  brutal  treatment  at  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 

The  foregoing  incident  must  be  the  one  to  which  Seneca  refers,  though 
some  copyist,  misled  by  the  abbreviation  (Pomp.)  has  substituted  another 
name,  unless  we  assume  two  consular  relatives  of  Caligula  (one  of  them 
unknown  to  our  present  published  consular  lists)  as  both  rescued  from 
their  enemies,  and  expressing  their  feelings  in  the  same  manner.  "  Caius 
CiEsar  [that  is,  Caligula]  granted  life  to  Pompeius  Pennus,  —  if  he  who 
does  not  take  away  can  be  regarded  as  giving ;  then  to  him  [when]  set 
at  liberty  and  giving  thanks,  he  extended  his  left  foot  to  be  kissed. 
Those  who  excuse  it,  and  deny  that  it  was  prompted  by  insolence,  say 
that  he  wished  to  show  his  gilded,  or  rather  his  golden,  sock  splendid 
with  jewels.  Be  it  so.  What  more  shameful  than  that  a  consular 
man  kissed  gold  and  jewels  ? "  —  Seneca,  Dc  Bcncfic.  2,  12,  1.  His  fate 
after  the  murder  of  his  protector  is  elsewhere  portrayed  :  "  Are  you  richer 
than  Pompeius,  to  whom  — when  Caius,  previously  his  relative,  latteriy 
his  host,  had  opened  the  home  of  Caesar,  that  he  might  shut  up  his  own 
—  bread  and  water  were  wanting  ?  When  he  owned  so  many  streams 
rising  and  falling  on  his  own  property,  he  begged  drops  of  water ;  he 
perished  from  hunger  and  thirst  in  the  palace  of  his  relative,  whilst  an 
heir  gave  a  public  funeral  to  him  who  had  been  stai-ved."  —  Seneca,  Dc 
Tranquil.  An.  11,  8.  Such  appeals  to  imagination  and  efforts  at  dramatic 
effect  are  a  poor  substitute  for  indignation  at  gross  wrong.  Pomponius 
may  have  been  a  literary  rival  of  Seneca. 


§in.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,  A.  D.  37  -  41.  211 

sister  (or  else  his  daughter)  was  prosecuted  seventeen 
years  later,  as  will  appear  in  Nero's  reign,  for  observance 
of  Foreign  Kites,  that  is,  of  Judaism.  He  himself  had 
already,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  after  the  rebellion  of 
A.  D.  31,  been  among  those  prosecuted  by  patricians  for 
unbelief,***  and  after  a  confinement  of  seven  years  had 
been  set  at  liberty  by  the  truce  which  Caligula  on  his 
accession  effected  between  contending  parties.^  During 
the  latter's  absence  in  Gaul,  Pomponius  must  have  been 
rearrested,  and  one  ^^  at  least  of  his  freedwomen  was  tor- 
tured ineffectually  to  make  her  testify  against  him.  He 
himself  would  seem  also  to  have  been  tortured  until  he 
was  incapable  of  standing  or  moving.  Caligula  provided 
for  the  woman,  took  Pomponius  to  his  own  house  and  made 
an  entertainment  for  him,  at  which  the  unfortunate  man 
needed  to  be  carried  in.  He  reclined  next  below  Caligula, 
whose  foot,  possibly,  served  him  for  a  pillow.  The  warm- 
hearted poet  kissed  the  foot  on  or  near  which  his  head 
rested.  It  was  perhaps  the  only  way  in  which,  crippled 
as  he  was,  he  could  testify  his  feelings  towards  his  kindly 
relative.  When  Caligula,  shortly  afterwards,  was  mur- 
dered, his  domestics  must  have  tied,  and  Pomponius,  un- 
able to  help  himself,  perished  from  want. 

^  See  in  the  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  114.  Caligula  selected  es- 
pecially the  prosecutions  for  unbelief  as  of  senatorial  origin. 

^^  Caligula  on  his  accession  "set  at  liberty  those  in  prison  (of  whom 
one  was  Quintns  [?]  Pomponius  Secundus  [Tac.  An.  6,  18],  who  for  seven 
years  after  his  consulate  had  been  held  in  duress  in  his  house)  and  put 
an  end  to  the  accusations  for  unbelief,  from  which  especially  he  saw  that 
the  prisoners  were  suffering."  —  Dio  Cass.  59,  n.  The  real  motive  for 
prosecuting  these  men  was  their  connection  with  the  popular  party.  Poni- 
l)onius  had  shielded  (Tac.  An.  5,  S)  a  friend  of  Sejanus  and  (Pliny,  13, 
26,  1)  kept  relics  of  the  Gracchi. 

*®  Dio  Cassius  (59, 26)  applies  to  the  woman  the  ambiguous  term  eraipa, 
wife  or  mistress.  Pomponius  may  have  married  an  educated  freedwoman 
whose  position  her  tormentors  sought  to  obscure.  More  probably  she  sus- 
tained neither  relation  to  him,  and  they  merely  aimed  by  defaming  her 
to  diminish  sympathy.  The  remarks  by  Josephus  (Antiq.  19, 1,  .n)  on  the 
woman's  antecedents  are  in  a  connection  which  bears  umnistakable  marks 
of  patrician  origin. 


212  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIIL 

Patrician  accounts  are  silent  as  to  the  sufferings  of 
Pomponius,  and  charge  the  brutal  usage  of  his  freed- 
woman,  not  upon  their  own  party,  but  upon  Caligula,  to 
whom,  as  to  Tiberius,  they  attributed  their  own  crimes.^" 
In  their  eyes,  the  only  remarkable  thing  in  the  whole 
transaction  is  a  reward  given  a  freedwoman  for  not  testi- 
fying against  her  innocent  patron,  from  which  they  doubt- 
less argued  that  their  own  slaves  and  freedmen  should 
not  be  permitted  to  testify  against  themselves  when  they 
had  committed  crime.^^    We  now  go  back. 

Caligula,  who  had  been  absent  about  a  year,  turned  to- 
wards liome.  He  told  the  messengers  sent  to  him  that  he 
would  bring  his  sword  with  him.  He  announced  that  he 
no  longer  wished  to  be  regarded  either  as  a  member  or 
primate  of  the  Senate  ;  that  he  was  returning  to  the 
knights  and  the  people.^^  The  mass  of  citizens  were  in 
his  favor,  and  therefore  open  conspiracy  could  not  be 
maintained.  A  few  connected  with  it  were  executed  and 
a  large  number  were  banished.     Whether  those  executed 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note  114. 

®^  "He  discharged  Pomponius,  who  had  been  accused  of  conspiracy 
against  himself,  [?]  because  he  had  been  betrayed  by  a  friend  [?]  ;  and  to 
the  man's  companion  he  not  only  did  no  harm  because  of  her  having  given 
no  testimony  when  tortured,  but  even  remunerated  her  with  property."  — 
Dio  Cass.  59,  26.  "  He  gave  to  a  freedwoman  eighty  thousand  sesterces 
for  not  discovering  a  crime  committed  by  her  patron,  though  she  had 
been  put  to  exquisite  torture  for  that  purpose." — Sueton.  Calig.  16, 
Bohn's  trans.     Josephus  {Antiq.  19,  1,  5)  calls  the  man  Pompcdius. 

On  patrician  views  of  testimony  by  slave  or  freedman  against  master  or 
patron,  see  pp.  76,  77  ;  compare  Ch.  V.  §  5  ;  also  Dio  Cass.  60,  15,  1(3. 

^^  Caligula  "  announced  also  that  he  would  return  to  those  only  who 
were  wishing  him,  namely,  the  equestrian  order  and  the  people,  for  he 
would  no  longer  be  a  member  or  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate."  —  Sue- 
tonius, Calig.  49.  The  senators  had  murdered  (Sueton.  Calig.  28)  one 
of  their  own  number  in  the  Senate  house.  An  ambiguous  passage  of  Sen- 
neca  ("  Rulers  do  not  [as  under  Caius]  .  .  .  feel  alarm  at  the  sight  of 
every  ship."  — Ad  Polyh.  32,  4),  raises  suspicion  that  their  fleet  may,  as 
in  A.  D.  37  (see  p.  101)  have  murdered  provincial  rulers,  or  persons  exiled 
by  themselves  and  by  their  courts,  a  suspicion  strengthened  by  the  charge 
against  Caligula  of  such  murders  (Sueton.  Calig.  28  ;  Philo,  Aguinst 
Flac.  21). 


§111.]  CHKONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.   37-41.  213 

were  condemned  for  conspiracy,  or  for  crimes  against  the 
popular  party,  is  a  point  on  which  we  have  no  satisfactory 
evidence.  The  patricians,  who  held  the  law-making  and 
controlled  the  judicial  power,  had  certainly  committed 
crimes  enough  against  their  opponents. 

Caligula,  as  a  protection  to  the  mass  of  citizens,  under- 
took to  restore,  or  enlarge,  their  former  electoral  powers.^" 
This  was  in  the  eyes  of  patricians  an  unpardonable  offence, 
and  insured  his  assassination.^^ 

If  an  impulsive,  though  kind-hearted  man,  had,  in  con- 
fronting the  Senate,  been  so  provoked  by  its  judicial 
murders  and  legalized  crime  as  to  condemn  its  members 
through  impatience  rather  than  because  of  careful  inves- 
tigation into  the  doings  of  each  individual,  his  failing 
could  be  readily  comprehended.  Yet  Seneca,  who  was 
disposed  to  point  out  his  weak  rather  than  his  good 
points,^^  who  was  willing  even  to  repeat  partisan  per- 
versions of  his  conduct,  nowhere  names  any  one  as  un- 
justly put  to  death  by  him.  The  matters  of  dress,  to 
which  he  excepts  in  connection  with  executions,  imply 
that  graver  subjects  of  fault-finding  were  absent.^^ 

^  The  Senate  (see  Ch.  V.  §  x.  1)  had,  in  A.  d.  14,  usurped  the  elec- 
toral rights  of  popular  assemblies.  Caligula  "restored  electoral  assem- 
blies to  the  citizens  and  multitude  [ceiituries  and  tribes  ?]."  —  Dio  Cass. 
59,9  ;  compare  59,  20.  "He  tried  also,  by  recalling  the  custom  of  Co- 
mitia,  to  restore  suffrage  to  the  citizens." —  Sueton.  Calig.  16. 

^^  Chffirea,  who  assas.sinated  Caligula,  had  been  active  (see  Tacitus,  An. 
1,  32)  in  the  attempted  rebellion  of  A.  D.  14,  against  Tiberias. 

^  Seneca  moved  in  patrician  society,  and  could  not  escape  its  influ- 
ence. He  was  constitutionally  the  reverse  of  Caligula,  who  had  more- 
over (see  note  57)  criticised  his  style,  and  in  one  instance  (Dio  Cass. 
59,  Ifi)  had  come  into  collision  with  him  in  the  Senate.  Seneca  may  have 
felt  that  it  cost  him  less  self-respect  to  make  political  capital  at  expense 
of  Caligula  than  of  any  one  else.     Compare  note  131. 

^  "  Caius  Cffisar  put  to  death  by  scourging,  in  one  day,  Sextus  Papinius, 
WHOSE  FATHER  WAS  OF  CONSULAR  RANK  ;  Betilienus  Bassus,  his  quffistor, 
the  son  of  his  pi'ocurator,  and  other  Roman  knights  and  senators.  .  .  . 
Afterwards,  .  .  .  while  walking  with  matrons  and  senators  in  the  prom- 
enade of  his  maternal  gardens,  he  had  some  of  them  [the  criminals]  exe- 
cuted by  candlelight.     What  urgency  was  there  ?     What  danger,  either 


214  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  CH.  VIH. 

If  Caligula  applied  the  laws,  at  this  date,  with  undue 
severity,  against  any  offenders,  it  was  probably  in  requital 
against  such  as  had  brutally  misapplied  them  towards  in- 
dividuals of  the  popular  party.^*  He  had  become  satisfied 
that  Eome,  ruled  by  the  aristocracy,  peopled  largely  by 
its  slaves  and  retainers,  and  burdened  with  its  legislation 
and  with  judicial  decisions  in  its  favor,  was  ill-adapted  to 
the  maintenance  of  justice.  He  thought  of  removing 
the  government  to  Antium,  but  subsequently  decided  on 
taking  it  to  Alexandria.^^ 

If  the  question  be  asked  why  Caligula,  who,  as  we  may 
infer  from  the  passage  of  Seneca  already  quoted,  put  but 
three  senators  to  death,  should  in  subsequent  times  have 
been  more  maligned  than  his  successor,  who  executed 
thirty  or  thirty-five,^^  the  answer  is,  that  Claudius  co- 
private  or  public,  did  one  night  threaten  ?  How  little  sacrifice  would  it 
have  been  to  have  awaited  daylight,  so  that  he  should  not  whilst  wear- 
ing slippers  [!]  put  to  death  senators  of  the  Roman  people?  ...  la 
this  place  it  will  be  answered  :  '  A  great  thing  if  he  apportioned  to  scourge 
and  fire  three  senators  as  if  they  had  been  criminal  slaves,  the  man 
who  thought  of  killing  the  whole  Senate,  who  wished  [see  note  72] 
that  the  Roman  people  had  but  one  neck.'  .  .  .  What  is  so  unheard  of  as 
nocturnal  punishment?"  —  Seneca,  De  Ira,  3,18,  3-19,  2.  Seneca 
does  not  intimate  that  scourge  (compare  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  1190, 
col.  2)  and  fire  were  unusual  punishments,  except  for  patricians.  Proba- 
bly the  ruling  class  had  established  or  re-established  them  for  certain 
offences.  Dio  Cassius  (59,  7)  mentions  the  wearing  of  slippers  by  people 
of  rank  as  frequent  at  public  games,  and  not  infrequent  on  the  judicial 
tribunal,  though  Tiberius  had  intermitted  it.  The  Betillinus  Cassius 
whom  he  mentions  (59,  25)  as  executed  in  A.  D.  40  is  probably  the  above 
Bassus,  who  may,  or  may  not,  be  the  one  mentioned  in  Ch.  V.  note  80. 

^  The  attendance  of  Capito  at  his  son's  execution  is  said  (Dio  Cass. 
59,  2.i)  to  have  been  compulsory.  This  may  be  incorrect,  or  may  have 
been  in  requital  of  similar  action  by  him  towards  some  member  of  the 
jiopular  party.  Seneca,  who  was  certainly  disposed  to  paint  Caligula  un- 
favorably, omits  mention  of  the  above  (Z^e  Ira,  3, 18,  :!)  from  his  account 
of  the  son's  execution. 

95  Sueton.  Calig.  49. 

3^  Claudius  put  to  death  "thirty-five  senators  and  more  than  three 
hundred  Roman  knights."  —  Sueton.  Claud.   29.     Another  authority 


§111.]  CimONOLOGICAL   XARRATIVE,   A.  D.    37-41.  215 

operated  with  the  patrician  majority,  murdering  those 
whom  it  wished  murdered.  Caligula  stood  in  its  way, 
protecting  alike  the  popular  party,  the  monotheists,  and 
the  patrician  minority. 

3.    THE   ALLEGED   STATUE   FOR  THE   JEWISH   TEMPLE. 

A  patrician  Jew,  connected  unquestionably  with  the 
conspiracy  of  a.  d.  37  against  Caligula,  charges  that  he 
purposed  erecting  his  statue  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 
The  charge  comes  from  a  suspicious  source,  and  will  not 
bear  scrutiny. 

Caligula  began  his  reign  with  aversion  or  distaste  for 
statues  of  himself.^"  Philo,  who  first  mentions  the  charge 
against  him  of  intending  to  erect  his  statue  in  the  temple 
at  Jerusalem,  had  abundant  motive  and  opportunity  for 
learning  any  order  touching  it.  Yet  he  informs  us  that 
no  plainly  worded  order  to  that  effect  had  been  issued.^^ 
We  can  safely  assume,  therefore,  that  the  letters  on  the 
subject  mentioned  in  Josephus^^  are  spurious. 

A  statement  surrounded  by  untruths  is  to  be  received 
with  distrust,  especially  if  an  urgent  motive  for  its  fabri- 
cation be  obvious.  The  distrust  is  not  diminislied  by  the 
method  of  Philo's  narrative,  who,  instead  of  a  plain  state- 
ment, substitutes  a  scene.-'*^*^ 

mentions  "thirty  senators  killed,  three  hundred  and  fifteen  Roman 
knights,  and  many  (221)  others."  — De  Morte  Claudii  Ludus,  14,  i, 
in  Seneca,  Oj^p.  Phihs.  Vol.  2,  p.  299. 

^  Dio  Cassius  (59,  4)  speaks  of  Caligula  as  "at  first  forbidding  any 
one  to  set  up  images  of  himself."  According  to  a  Jew,  "Caius  managed 
public  affairs  with  very  great  magnanimity  during  the  first  and  second 
year  of  his  reign,  and  behaved  himself  with  such  moderation  that  he 
gained  the  good-will  both  of  the  Romans  themselves  and  of  his  other 
subjects."  ^ — Josephus,  Antiq.  18,  7,  2,  Whiston's  trans. 

**  "  The  letter  respecting  the  erection  of  the  statue  was  written  not  in 
plain  terms."  —  Philo,  Embassy  to  Caius,  31,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Paris  edit. 
p.  703,  lines  1,  2.  If  it  was  not  written  in  plain  terms,  we  can  safely 
infer  that  it  was  not  written  by  Caligula.  Compare,  in  note  109,  the 
order  actually  sent. 

^^  Josephus,  Antiq.  18,  8,  2  and  8. 

^^  "  While  we  were  anxiously  considering,  ...  a  man  arrived,  with 


216  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

Again :  the  story  of  Caligula's  statue  can  neither  be 
reconciled  with  the  statements  of  its  earliest  narrator, 
nor  with  the  known  facts  of  history.  Philo  alleges  that, 
whilst  he  and  other  ambassadors  from  Alexandria  were 
awaiting  audience  from  Caligula,  the  order,  or  at  least  the 
purpose  of  the  latter  to  erect  his  statue,  became  known, 
and  that  some  of  the  latter's  correspondence  witli  Petro- 
nius  touching  it  took  place  at  the  subsequent  harvest.^*'^ 
If  we  now  examine  into  the  date  of  these  events,  we  learn 
from  Philo  that  he  and  his  companions  came  to  Eome 
in  midwinter,^'^^  and  at  a  later  date  followed  Caligula  to 


"bloodshot  eyes,  and  looking  very  much  troubled,  out  of  breath  and  pal- 
pitating, and  leading  us  away  to  a  little  distance  from  the  rest  (for  there 
were  several  persons  near),  he  said,  'Have  you  heard  the  news  ? '  And 
then,  when  he  was  about  to  tell  us  what  it  was,  he  stopped,  because  of 
the  abundance  of  tears  that  rose  up  to  choke  his  utterance.  And,  begin- 
ning again,  he  was  a  second  and  a  third  time  stopped  in  the  same  manner. 
And  we,  seeing  this,  were  much  alarmed  and  agitated  by  suspense,  and 
entreated  him  to  tell  us  what  the  circumstance  was  on  account  of  which 
he  said  that  he  had  come ;  for  he  could  not  have  come  merely  to  weep 
before  so  many  witnesses.  'If  then,'  said  we,  'you  have  any  real  cause 
for  tears,  do  not  keep  your  grief  to  yourself;  we  have  been  long  ago 
well  accustomed  to  misfortune.' 

"  And  he,  with  difficulty,  sobbing  aloud,  and  in  a  broken  voice,  spoke 
as  follows :  '  Our  temple  is  destroyed !  Caius  has  ordered  a  colossal 
statue  of  himself  to  be  erected  in  the  holy  of  holies,  having  his  own 
name  inscribed  upon  it  with  the  title  of  Jupiter ! '  And  while  we  were  all 
struck  dumb  with  astonishment  and  terror  at  what  he  told  us,  and  stood 
still  deprived  of  all  motion  (for  we  stood  there  mute  and  in  despair, 
ready  to  fall  to  the  ground  with  fear  and  sorrow,  the  very  nuiscles  of  our 
bodies  being  deprived  of  all  strength  by  the  news  which  we  had  heard), 
others  arrived  bearing  the  same  sad  tale."  —  Philo,  Embassy  to  Caius, 
29,  Bolm's  trans.  ;  Oji}}.  Paris  edit.  pp.  700,  701.  The  .statements  or 
insinuations  of  Tacitus  {An.  12,  54;  Hist.  5,  9)  will  appear  in  our  next 
two  sections. 

101  Petronius  "determined  to  write  a  letter  to  Gains.  ...  It  was  just 
at  the  moment  the  very  height  of  the  wheat  harvest  and  of  all  the  other 
cereal  crops."  —  Philo,  Embassy,  33,  Bohn's  trans.;  Oi^p.  Paris  edit, 
pp.  723,  724.     Compare  Embassy,  34 ;  0pp.  Paris  edit.  pp.  723,  724. 

i''2  riiilo.  Embassy,  29;  Op}).  Paris  edit.  p.  701,  line  10. 


§111.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.   37-41.  217 

Dic.nearchia,^''^  otherwise  called  Puteoli,  where  the  latter's 
intention,  or  order,  became  known. 

The  embassy  cannot  have  taken  place  in  the  winter 
of  40  -  41,  for  Caliguk,  who  was  murdered  January  24, 
could  not  have  corresponded  with  any  one  during  the 
subsequent  harvest.  That  winter's  events  also  preclude 
the  supposition  that  Caligula  could  have  been  absent  at 
Dicffiarchia  to  rusticate,  or  to  superintend  building. 

It  cannot  have  taken  place  in  the  winter  of  39-40,  for 
Caligula  was  then  absent  from  Italy. 

We  must  select,  therefore,  between  the  w^inters  of 
37-38  and  38-39.  If  any  credit  can  be  attached  to 
Philo's  own  statements,  we  must  assume  the  former  of 
these  two  winters,  since  the  embassy  took  place  but  a 
short  time  after  Herod's  arrival  at  Alexandria,  in  the 
autumn  of  o7}^*  This  accords  moreover  with  the  con- 
dition of  things  in  Alexandria,  which  was  more  likely 
to  occasion  an  embassy  in  that,  than  in  the  siibsecjuent 
winter.  Caligula  also  was  not  unlikely  after  his  illness 
to  visit  the  seaside. 

If  we  now  assume  even  that  the  order  was  not  given 
before  the  spring  of  38,  yet  the  two  suppositions,  that 
Caligula's  death  interrupted  its  execution,  and  that  his 


i°3  Philo,  Embassy,  29 ;  0pp.  Paris  edit.  p.  700,  lines  34,  35. 

104  "This  memorial  [brought  by  the  Embassy]  was  nearly  an  abridg- 
ment of  a  longer  petition  which  we  had  sent  to  him  A  short  time  before 
by  the  hand  of  King  Agiippa  ;  for  he  by  chance  was  staying  for  a  short 
time  in  the  city  [of  Alexandria]  while  on  his  way  into  Syria  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  kingdom  which  had  been  given  him."  —  Philo,  Embassy, 
28,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  02)p.  Paris  edit.  p.  700,  lines  11-13.  In  the  tract, 
Against  Flaccus,  Philo's  narrative,  as  already  mentioned  on  page  100, 
implies  that  Herod  arrived  in  September,  or  the  early  part  of  October, 
A.  D.  37.  Touching  the  alleged  memorial  forwarded  by  Herod,  compare 
Against  Flaccus,  12;  0pp.  Paris  edit.  pp.  672,  673.  If  Herod  carried 
this  letter,  as  the  above  implies,  to  Rome,  then  he  cannot  have  continued 
his  journey  to  Syria.  He  may,  even  if  he  returned  as  a  prisoner,  have 
hoped  through  Antonia,  his  mother's  friend,  to  influence  her  grandson, 
the  emperor.  Philo's  brother,  her  fiscal  agent,  may  have  .sought  her 
kindly  intervention, 
10 


218  JUDAISM  AT  KOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

second  letter  reached  Petronius  after  his  assassination, 
become  absurdities. 

Further :  The  Jews  during  Caligula's  reign  multi})lied 
at  Rome  to  such  a  degree,  that  after  his  death  the  party 
in  power  assigned,  though  falsely,  the  fear  of  disturbance 
as  a  reason  for  their  non-expulsion.  The  aristocracy  were 
their  enemies  and  this  increase  must  therefore  imply  that 
Caligula  had  been  their  friend.  The  same  is  implied  by 
the  efforts  of  Philo,  and  of  the  writers  wliom  Josephus 
copied,^*^^  to  picture  Herod  as  an  intimate  friend  of 
Caligula  whom  the  latter  was  loath  to  disoblige.  It  is 
yet  further  implied  by  the  action  of  Herod,  who  in  the 
year  41,  when  he  became  king,  hung  up  in  the  temple 
a  gold  chain  '^^^  which  he  professed  to  have  received  as  a 
present  from  Caligula,  and  which  he  must  have  intended 
as  evidence  before  the  eyes  of  all  beholders,  that  a  fiiend 
of  Caligula  came  to  rule  the  Jews. 

To  appreciate  the  true  import  of  his  action,  let  us  sup- 
pose a  case  scantly  difiering  from  common  belief.  Let  us 
imagine  that  Herod  had  hung  up  in  the  temple  a  costly 
gift,  alleging  it  to  be  from  his  near  and  intimate  friend 
Beelzebub.  Politically  such  a  gift  could,  in  a  monothe- 
istic community,  have  operated  nothing  but  injury  to  its 
recipient,  and  its  suspension  in  the  temple  would  have 
shocked  Jewish  feeling.  Yet  if  popular  Jewish  views  of 
Caligula  at  the  date  of  his  death  had  been  those  wliich 

1'^^  Philo  puts  into  Caligula's  mouth  the  utterance:  "  Agrippa 
[Herod],  who  is  my  most  intimate  and  dearest  friend  and  one  bound 
to  me  by  so  many  benefits."  —  Embassy,  35,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  0pp.  Paris 
edit.  p.  724,  line  27.  According  to  Josephus,  "King  Agrippa,  who 
now  [at  a  date  after  the  statue  had  been  ordered]  lived  at  Rome,  was  more 
and  more  in  [the]  favor  of  Caius." — Antiq.  18,  8,  7,  Winston's  trans. 
That  writer  makes  Caligula  remark  to  Herod:  "It  would  be  a  base 
thing  for  me  to  be  conquered  by  thy  affection ;  I  am,  therefore,  desirous 
to  make  thee  amends  for  everything,  in  which  I  have  been  any  way  for- 
merly deficient ;  for  all  that  I  have  bestowed  on  thee,  that  may  be  cmlled 
my  gifts,  is  but  little.  Everything  that  may  contribute  to  thy  happiness 
shall  be  at  thy  service,  and  that  cheerfully,  and  so  far  as  my  ability  will 
reach." — Ibid.,  Whiston's  trans. 

WG  Josephus,  jRtiq.  19,  C,  1. 


§111.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.    37-4L  219 

the  aristocracy  subsequently  disseminated,  a  gift  from 
Caligula  and  one  from  Beelzebub  would  in  popular  esti- 
mation have  stood  on  a  par. 

The  following  may  approximate  to  a  correct  narrative 
of  what  actually  transpired.  The  effort  at  rebellion  in 
Alexandria  was  accompanied  by  some  slight  or  serious 
demonstration  of  the  same  kind  on  the  not  distant  sea- 
coast  west  of  Judfea.  The  governor  of  Syria  was  at  once 
replaced  by  another,  Petronius,  a  man  who,  according  to 
both  rhilo  and  Josephus,  had  no  unfriendliness  to  the 
Jews.  Sufficient  troops  were  at  once  ordered  from  Syria 
and  the  Euphrates  to  render  any  such  effort  hopeless.^^' 
Accompanying  circumstances  need  a  word  of  exjdanation. 
Effigies  of  friends  were  a  common  ornament  in  house- 
holds. Public  display  or  public  destruction  of  such 
effigies  implied  political  friendship,  or  hostility,  to  the 
person  whom,  or  the  cause  Avliich,  they  represented. -^"^^ 
Thus,  had  lioman  customs  prevailed  among  us  during  our 
late  rebellion,  individuals  who  wished  to  indicate  their 
political  sympathies  would,  instead  of  hanging  from  their 
window  a  flag  of  the  United  States,  or  else  of  the  Con- 
federacy, have  placed  an  effigy  of  Abraliam  Lincoln  or  of 
Jefferson  Davis  in  front  of  their  premises.  The  enemies 
of  Caligula  had  been  throwing  down  his  effigies  and 
those  of  liis  relatives,  expressing  thereby  a  wish  to  over- 
throw his  government.  Caligula  wrote,  that  inside  of 
Jerusalem  the  prevention  of  images,  or  non-Jewish  sacri- 
fices, should  be  permitted,  but  that  if  any  one  in  the 
adjacent  countries  interfered  with  images  of  himself  or 
fatnily,  or  with  sacrifices  in  their  behalf,  he  should  be 
called  to  account.^^^     His  views  of  images  or   sacrifices 


1"^  Josephus,  Antiq.  18,  8,  2  ;  Philo,  Embassy,  31  ;  O})}).  Paris  edit. 
p.  703.  Both  these  writers  represent  the  movement  of  troojjs  as  precau- 
tionary against  trouble  in  setting  up  the  statue. 

^"^  See  the  attempted  destruction  of  Piso's  statues,  Tacitus,  An.  3, 14. 
Livilla's  are  mentioned  as  destroyed,  Tacitus,  An.  6,  2  ;  those  also  of 
Sejanus,  Dio  Cass,  58,  11  ;  and  of  Vitellius,  Tacitus,  Hist.  3,  85. 

1°^  Caligula  "wrote  :  If  in  the  adjoining  countries,  except  only  the 
METROPOLIS,  any  person  wishing  to  erect  altars,  or  temples,  or  images, 


220  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  "        [CH.  Vm. 

cannot  be  inferred  from  this  order.    The  army,  when  dan- 
ger was  over,  returned  to  its  former  quarters. ^^^ 

After  Cali<;ula's  death,  the  Jewish  aristocracy,  either 
through  malignity  or  to  mitigate  the  odium  under  which 
they  labored  as  associates  of  his  murderers,  undertook  to 
defame  him.  In  this  they  were  aided  by  the  following 
circumstances.  The  Alexandrine  populace  had  seen  the 
Jewish  aristocracy  there  prompting  the  destruction  of 
Caligula's  images  at  a  moment  when  he  was  dangerously 
ill,  and  when  the  popular  party  in  every  land  was  anx- 
iously hoping  and  petitioning  for  bis  recovery.  In  their 
indignation  they  had  carried  one  of  his  images  triumph- 
antly into  a  synagogue,  perhaps  into  one  where  his  chief 
enemies  gathered. ^^^     Again  :  Caligula's  pleasantries  with 


or  statues,  are  hindered  from  sacrificing  [to  the  gods]  in  behalf  of  my.self 
or  relatives,  punish  at  once  those  who  hinder  them,  or  else  bring  them  be- 
fore you."  —  Philo,  Embassy,  42,  0pp.,  Paris  edit.  p.  730,  lines  12-15. 
That  heathens  should  sacrifice  for  the  welfare  of  Caligula  and  his  family 
implies  no  more  desire  on  their  part  to  deify  liim  than  on  the  part  of  Jews, 
who  sacrificed  for  the  same  object.  Yet  Philo  represents  himself,  how- 
ever untruthfully,  as  saying  to  Caligula  :  "  AVe  did  sacrifice,  and  we 
offered  up  entire  hecatombs,  the  blood  of  which  we  poured  in  a  libation 
upon  the  altar,  and  the  flesh  we  did  not  carry  to  our  homes  to  make  a 
feast  and  banquet  upon  it,  as  it  is  the  custom  of  some  people  to  do,  but 
we  committed  the  victims  entire  to  the  sacred  flame  as  a  burnt  ofl'ering  ; 
and  we  have  done  this  three  times  already,  and  not  once  only  :  on  the 
first  occasion  when  you  succeeded  to  the  empire,  and  the  second  time 
when  you  recovered  from  that  terrible  disease  with  wbich  all  the  habitable 
world  was  [through  sympathy]  afflicted  at  tlie  same  time,  and  the-  tliird 
time  we  sacrificed  in  hope  of  your  victory  over  the  Gcrmans."^ — Philo, 
Emhassy,  45,  Fiohn's  trans.  ;  0pp.,  Paris  edit.  p.  732,  lines  20-25.  The 
movement  into  Germany  was  of  much  later  date  than  this  Embassj',  and 
cannot  have  been  mentioned  by  Philo  in  any  speech  to  Caligula.  Any 
.sacrifice  for  recovery  of  the  latter  can  scarcely  have  been  offered  by  Jews 
in  rebellion  against  him. 

no  Petronius  "took  the  aruiy  out  of  Ptolemais  and  returned  to  Anti- 
och."  — Josephus,  Wars,  2,  10,  .5,  Whi.ston's  trans.  This  is  represented 
as  occurring  in  the  spring,  though  whether  in  that  of  38,  or  of  some  later 
year,  is  open  to  surmise. 

m  Tlie  populace  "set  up  in  every  [?]  one  of  them   [the  synagogues] 


§111.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,   A.  D.  37-41,  221 

regard  to  Castor  and  Pollux,  or  Jupiter,  admitted,  at  a 
distance,  of  serious  misrepresentation.  Further  :  in  the 
latter  part  of  Caligula's  reign  —  probably  when  he  was 
about  to  return  from  Gaul  —  persons  who  had  compro- 
mised themselves  must  have  undertaken,  by  ridiculous 
homage  of  his  statues,  to  divert  indignation  from  their 
misdeeds.-^^^  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
thanked  them  for  it,  or  that  he  was  in  the  least  degree 
imposed  upon  by  it. 

In  course  of  time  the  Jewish  and  Eoman  aristocracies 
obtained  partial  credence  for  their  falsehoods  concerning 
Caligula.  The  former  body  must  have  overdone  its  in- 
tended work  by  creating  a  belief  that  the  head  of  the 

images  of  Cains  ;  and  in  the  greatest  and  most  consiHcuous  and  most 
celebrated  of  them  they  erected  a  brazen  .statue  of  him  borne  on  a  four- 
horse  chariot."  —  Philo,  Embassy.  20,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Oj)}).  Paris  edit. 
p.  695.  Jews  of  the  popular  paiiy  shared  doubtless  the  indignation 
against  their  rulers,  and  may  in  some  cases  have  cared  but  little  for  the 
method  of  its  manifestation.  The  aristocratic  sjmagogues  had  been  orna- 
mented by  their  owners  (Philo,  Ibid.)  with  shields,  crowns,  pillars,  and 
inscriptions  in  honor  of  the  emperor,  that  is,  probably,  of  Augustus. 

^12  "  He  (?)  also  instituted  a  temple  and  priests,  with  choicest  victims, 
in  honor  of  his  own  divinity.  In  his  temple  stood  a  statue  of  gold,  the 
exact  image  of  himself,  which  was  daily  dressed  in  garments  correspond- 
ing with  those  he  wore  himself.  The  most  opulent  persons  in  the  city 
offered  themselves  as  candidates  for  the  honor  of  being  his  priests,  and 
purchased  it  successively  at  an  immense  price.  The  victims  were  fla- 
mingos, peacocks,  bustards,  guinea-fowls,  turkey  and  pheasant  hens,  each 
sacrificed  on  their  respective  days."  —  Sueton.  Calig.  22,  Bohn's  trans. 

Caligula,  as  already  stated  in  note  97,  had,  during  the  first  half,  at 
least,  of  his  reign,  a  repugnance  to  images,  and  during  most  of  its  lat- 
ter half  was  ab.sent  in  Gaul.  Tlie  foregoing  obsequiousness  was,  no 
doubt,  as  in  the  case  of  Tiberius  and  Sejanus  (see  Appendix,  Note  G, 
foot-note  48),  unauthorized  by  the  person  towards  whom  it  was  shown. 
To  Caligula,  if  in  Gaul,  it  may  even  have  been  unknown.  If  a  temple 
and  priests  were  instituted  to  him,  it  must  have  been  done  by  the  fright- 
ened Senate,  who  had  been  torturing  his  relatives  and  friends.  It  had  in 
A.  D.  39,  after  he  rebuked  it  for  its  falsehoods  concerning  Tiberius,  re- 
sorted to  the  same  childish  folly  of  voting  sacrifices  to  his  clemency  (Dio 
Cass.  59,  IG),  though  he  had  left  the  city  before  the  vote  was  passed. 


222  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

Roman  Empire  was  naturally  God's  chief  opponent.  Tliis 
belief  is  clearly  discernible  eleven  or  twelve  years  after 
Caligula's  death,  when  Claudius  expelled  the  Jews  from 
Ptome  ;  it  gained  additional  strength  from  the  war  which 
commenced  under  Nero,  and  it  eventuated  in  a  concep- 
tion called  Antichrist,  which  has  not  yet  died  out. 

§  IV.     Claudius.     A  Reign  of  Patricianism  and  Heathen- 
ism. 

After  the  assassination  of  Caligula  (January  24,  a.  d.  41) 
a  brief  struggle  placed  the  patricians  in  power,  with 
Claudius  as  emperor.  Herod,  their  agent  in  the  Alexan- 
drine rebellion,  was  at  once  rewarded  with  a  large  king- 
dom. Lysimachus,  brother  of  Philo,  and  head  as  it  would 
seem  of  patrician  Judaism  at  Alexandria,  \vas  released 
from  imprisonment/^^  and  the  Jewish  commonalty  in  that 
city,  for  it  must  liave  been  they  who  rebelled  against  tlie 
new  arrangement,  were  crushed. ^^* 

At  Ptome  the  expulsion  of  Jews  must  have  been  dis- 
cussed but  deferred,  not  for  the  reason  assigned  by  Dio 
Cassius,  but  because  of  the  political  embarrassment  which 
it  would  have  caused  to  Herod  and  to  the  Jewish  aris- 
tocracy, allies  whom  patricianism  needed  to  strengthen. 
For  the  same  reason  prosecutions  for  unbelief  must  liave 
been  intermitted.^^^  A  decree  was,  however,  issued  for 
restricting  Judaism  and  Gentile  monotheism  at  Rome, 
and  therewith  perhaps  for  abolishing  clubs  of  the  popu- 
lar party.  ^^^ 

113  Josephus,  Aiitiq.  19,  5,  1. 

11*  Joseplius,  Anliq.  19,  5,  2.  Tacitus  would  like  us  to  beliove  {An. 
12,  .54)  that  a  rebellion  of  the  same  date  in  Judica  was  against  Caligula, 
and  that  it  quieted  down  on  the  accession  of  Claudius. 

11*  Claudius  "in  like  manner  put  an  end,  not  in  his  edirts  alone,  but 
practically,  to  prosecution  for  unbelief."  —  Dio  Cassius,  60,  .!. 

ii**  "  He  did  not  indeed  expel  the  Jews,  who  had  multiplied  again  so 
that,  because  of  their  number,  they  could  with  difficulty  be  kept  out  of 
the  city  unless  at  the  cost  of  a  disturbance ;  but  he  forbade  the  assembling 
of  such  as  lived  according  to  their  law. 

"  He  also  dissolved  the  [heathen?  or  monothcist?]  associations  (iraipd- 


§iv.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  41-51.  223 

The  faction  in  power  commenced  an  era  of  terrorism 
towards  its  antagonists  of  every  grade.  The  murder  of 
slaves  under  circumstances  of  retined  cruelty  has  been 
already  narrated.^^'  Citizens  of  all  classes  were  put  to 
torture.^^^  Body  guards  were  murdered."^  Executions 
must  have  been  constantly  going  on.^^*^  Senators  distaste- 
ful to  the  majority  were  driven  out.  Equestrians  of 
whose  influence  the  Senate  felt  a  need  were  enrolled,  and 
the  fact  claims  much  reflection  that  some  of  these  pre- 


as)  which  had  been  reintroduced  by  Cains  [  Caligula],  and  seeing  that  it 
was  useless  to  forbid  the  multitude  any  course  of  action  unless  their  daily 
course  of  life  were  at  the  same  time  corrected,  he  closed  the  taverns  and 
forbade  the  sale  of  cooked  meat  or  warm  water,  and  jiunished  some  who 
disobeyed  this  enactment."  —  Dio  Cassius,  60,  n.  The  last  paragraph 
might  be  understood  as  aimed  simply  against  the  popular  party,  but  a 
previous  prosecution  of  some  one  for  unbelief  because  he  had  sold  warm 
water  (Dio  Cassius,  59,  n)  suggests  that  the  article  may  have  been  spe- 
cially used  in  some  way  by  adherents  of  Judaism.  If  the  associations 
were  monotheistic,  the  inference  would  become  probable  that  they  had 
been  suppressed  in  A.  D.  19  and  reintroduced  in  A.  D.  37,  as  part  of  the 
compromise  which  Caligula  effected  at  his  accession. 

It  may  have  been  at  this  same  date  that  Claudius  "totally  abolished 
[at  Rome  ?]  the  Druid  religion,  which  among  Gallos  inhabitants  of  Gaul 
was  dreadfully  cruel,  and  which  had  by  Augustus  been  interdicted  only 
to  citizens."  — Sueton.  Claud.  2b.  If  Pliny  {Nat.  Hist.  30,  4,  l)  be 
correct  that  the  same  had  been  done  under  Tiberius,  its  date  must  have 
been  under  A.  D.  19  or  31,  during  one  of  the  senatorial  rebellions  against 
that  emperor.  Then,  or  under  Claudius,  it  merely  meant  that  the  Senate 
had  no  wish  to  tolerate  what  it  did  not  control.  Compare  Appendix, 
Note  A,  foot-note  7. 

^"  See  pp.  76,  77,  with  which  compare  note  72  of  this  chapter. 

118  «<  They  used  slaves  and  freedmen  as  witnesses  against  their  masters. 
They  put  to  the  torture  these  [masters]  and  others,  some  even  the  high- 
est born,  not  merely  foreigners  but  citizens;  not  merely  plebeians  but 
equestrians  and  senators."  —  Dio  Cass.  60,  1,5.  The  party  which  per- 
petrated this  was  the  one  which  had  always  been  vociferous  against  using 
the  testimony  of  slaves  against  their  masters  or  of  freedmen  against  their 
patrons. 

11^  Josephus,  Antiq.  19,  5,  1;  quoted  in  Ch.  V.  note  109. 

^20  See  note  96. 


224  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  VIII. 

ferred  suicide  to  acceptance  of  a  seat  in  such  a  body.^^i 
Their  repugnance  may  have  been  due  to  moral  sense  or 
political  feeling  or  to  both  combined.  Reluctant  or  luke- 
warm senators  were  kept  within  reach  of  coercion  from 
their  colleagues  by  a  law  that  no  senator  should  go  more 
than  seven  miles  from  Eome  without  imperial  permis- 
sion.^^^ 

Political  preferences  were  at  that  date  manifested  by 
each  one  setting  up,  probably  before  his  dwelling,  the 
picture  or  statue  or  statuette  of  his  political  leader.  To 
the  ruling  class  any  such  admiration  of  popular  leaders 
would  be  intolerable.  The  removal  and  prohibition  of 
images  ^23  applied  doubtless  to  those  of  their  opponents, 
not  to  those  of  their  favorites.  It  is  significant  of  un- 
abated popular  affection  for  Caligula  that  his  images  had 
to  be  removed  stealthily  by  niglit.^^* 

Reaction  would  by  many  of  its  supporters  have  been 
deemed  incomplete  unless  some  outward  attention  to 
heathen  religious  rites  were  enforced.      In  determining 

^^^  Claudius  "rebuked  so  severely  those  (eqiiestriaus)  who  disobej-ed 
[a  summons  to  convene  with  the  Senate]  that  some  committed  suicide." 
—  Dio  Cass.  60,  11.  "  From  those  who  declined  the  senatorial  dignity 
he  took  away  the  equestrian."  —  Sueton.  Claud.  24,  Bohn's  trans.  Com- 
pare Ch.  VII.  note  61,  and  the  utterance  of  Caligula  in  note  89  of  the 
pre-sent  chapter.  In  A.  D.  47  a  Gaul  went  to  Carthage  (Dio  Cass.  60,  2!i) 
that  he  might  avoid  being  made  senator. 

^'^^  Suidas,  art.  Klaudios.  Compare  an  excejition  to  the  law  made  in 
A.  r.  49,  ob  cgregiam  in  Patres  revcrcntiam,  "because  of  conspicuous 
deference  to  the  Senate." — Tac.  An.  12,  23.  Conscious  tyranny  begets 
suspicion.  The  custom  was  initiated  of  searching  every  one,  man  or 
woman  (Dio  Cass.  60,  : ),  who  approached  the  emperor,  nor  was  it  inter- 
mitted until  the  accession  of  Vespasian. 

123  "Since  the  city  was  filled  with  a  multitude  of  images,  — for  it  was 
lawful,  without  restraint  to  all  who  wished,  to  publicly  set  them  up  in 
delineations,  or  in  brass  or  stone,  • —  [Claudius]  removed  most  of  them 
elsewhere,  and  for  the  future  forbade  any  private  person,  without  permis- 
.sion  OF  THE  Senate,  to  do  such  a  thing,  unless  when  building  or  rejiair- 
ing  some  structure."  —  Dio  Cass.  60,  2.'j. 

^^*  Claudius  "secretly  by  night  put  out  of  sight  all  his  [Caligula's] 
images."  —  Dio  Cass.  60, 4. 


§iv.]  CHUONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.   41-51.  225 

how  these  resuscitated  religious  observances  were  received 
by  Koraans,  we  can  facilitate  our  work  by  classifying 
them.  Those  which  ministered  to  eating,  drinking,  and 
idleness  admitted  temporary  revival  without  difficulty. 
The  aristocracy,  as  the  moneyed  class,  were  likely  to  share 
the  suffering  from  popular  excess  in  this  direction  and 
were  soon  glad  to  co-operate  in  curbing  it.^''^^  But  ob- 
servances which  ministered  to  no  human  appetite  or  pas- 
sion needed  repeated  governmental  effort  to  prevent  their 
neglect  or  extinction.^^^     Seneca  may  have  deferred  pub- 

1-5  In  A.  D.  43,  Claudius  "put  an  end  to  many  of  the  sacrifices  and 
festivals,  for  the  largest  portion  of  the  year  was  wasted  on  them,  and  the 
injury  thereby  to  the  public  was  not  small.  He,  therefore,  abrogated 
those,  'and  contracted  [the  duration  of]  as  many  others  as  possible."  — 
Dio  Cass.  60,  17. 

i'^**  Tacitus  tells  us,  under  A.  D.  47,  Claudius  "called  the  attention  of 
the  Senate  to  the  college  of  soothsayers,  that  the  oldest  [religious]  science 
of  Italy  might  not  die  out  through  neglect.  [He  said  that]  '  often  during 
adverse  circumstajices  of  the  republic  [persons]  had  been  sent  for,  by 
whose  direction  ceremonies  had  been  re-established  and  thereafter  more 
correctly  conducted ;  [that]  the  nobility,  primores,  of  Etruria  had  of  their 
own  accord,  or  under  prompting  from  the  Roman  Fathers,  retained 
the  knowledge  and  taught  it  to  their  slaves,  in  familias  jiroiMgasse,  which 
was  now  more  negligently  done  because  of  public  APATHY  TOWARDS  good 
ARTS,  and  because  FOREIGN  superstitions  are  gaining  strength.  All 
things  indeed  are  at  present  [he  said]  prosperous,  but  thanks  should  be 
given  to  the  benignity  of  the  gods.' 

"That  the  sacred  rites  should  not,  through  uncertainty  touching  [the 
manner  of]  their  observance,  be  obliterated  by  [existing]  prosperity,  it 
was  thereupon  enacted  by  the  Senate  that  the  chief  priests  should  ex- 
amine what  observances  of  the  soothsayers  ought  to  be  retained  and  put 
upon  a  better  footing."  —  Tacitus,  An.  11,  15. 

Several  things  in  the  foregoing  extract  claim  attention.  It  is  a 
confession  that  the  patricians,  though  constantly  prosecuting  others  for 
unbelief,  were  utterly  ignorant  of  the  so-called  religion  which  they  pre- 
tended to  uphold.  The  statement  that  only  in  public  calamity  had  it 
been  customary  to  give  much  attention  to  religious  rites  confirms,  if  con- 
firmation were  needed,  the  view  that  these  were  not  supposed  to  have  a 
bearing  on  morality.  If  the  method  of  conducting  these  had  to  be  as- 
certained by  inquiry  from  the  aristocracy  of  Etniria,  there  must  have 
been  utter  inattention  to  the  subject  at  Rome.  And  if  this  Etrurian 
10*  o 


226  JUDAISM   AT  EOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

lishing  his  uncomplimentary  description  of  these  observ- 
ances until  after  the  death  of  Claudius,  when  it  could  be 
more  safely  done.^^'^ 

The  orcler  of  nature  did  not  always  accommodate  it- 
self to  the  wants  of  reactionaries,  and  in  one  instance 
they  were  placed  by  it  in  a  somewhat  ridiculous  position. 

aristocracy  needed  prompting  from  the  Roman  Senate  to  do  that  which 
the  Senate  itself  utterly  neglected,  we  can  reasonably  infer  that  neither 
party  had  much  affection  for  their  task.  Teaching  slaves  would  scarcely 
impart  to  them  an  interest  which  the  teachers  did  not  feel,  or  a  knowl- 
edge of  which  they  were  destitute.  It  is  more  than  possible  that,  if  a 
■wealthy  Etrurian  sent  such  a  learned  slave  to  teach  the  Roman  officials 
their  duty,  one  half  of  his  instructions  would  be  the  mere  inventions  of 
himself  or  his  master.  The  sacrifice  of  a  sow  in  ti'eaty-making  (Sueton. 
Claud.  25)  could  be  confidently  adopted  as  anti-Jewish. 

The  mention  of  "superstitions"  in  the  plural  was  an  effort  at  self- 
deception.  Christianity,  even  five  years  later  than  this,  w-as  regarded  at 
Rome  as  a  part  of  Judaism ;  and  this  being  assumed,  there  was  no  for- 
eign religion  save  Judaism  and  no  native  one  either,  which  was  engaged 
in  public  teaching.     No  religion  save  monotheism  was  gaining  ground. 

127  "The  gods  themselves,  if  they  desire  such  things,  ought  not  to  re- 
ceive worship  from  any  race  of  men.  .  .  .  Madness  [however]  once  a  year 
[as  in  some  Egyptian  rites  previously  mentioned]  is  bearable.  Go  to  the 
Capitol.  You  will  be  ashamed  of  the  ofRce  —  assumed  by  empty  [headed] 
excitement  —  of  publicly  displaying  its  senselessness.  One  places  can- 
dles [for  numina  read  lumina]  before  a  god ;  another  announces  the  hour 
of  day  to  Jupiter;  another  is  lictor ;  another  is  anointer,  who  with  mean- 
ingless motion  of  his  arms  imitates  an  anointer.  There  are  feminine 
hair-dressers  for  Juno  and  Minerva,  who  standing  far,  not  merely  from 
the  images,  but  from  the  temple,  move  their  fingers  as  if  ornamenting 
[a  head].  Some  women  hold  a  looking-glass,  .  .  .  some  sit  in  the  Capitol 
who  think  that  Jupiter  is  in  love  with  them,  nor  are  they  [on  that  ac- 
count] afraid  of  Juno :  ...  all  which  tilings  a  wise  man  servabit  will 
uphold  (!)  as  legal  commands,  but  not  as  acceptable  to  the  gods."  — 
Seneca,  quoted  by  Augustine,  Be  Givitate  Dei,  6,  10,  11. 

Another  writer  says  of  the  emperor:  "Upon  the  sight  of  any  ominous 
bird  in  the  city  or  Capitol,  he  issued  an  order  for  a  supplication,  the 
words  of  which  ...  he  recited  in  the  presence  of  the  people,  who  re- 
peated them  after  him ;  all  workmen  and  slaves  being  first  ordered  to 
withdraw."  — Suetonius,  Claud.  22,  Bohn's  trans.  Did  the  deities 
share  patrician  contempt  for  workmen  and  slaves  ? 


§iv.]  CHKONOLOGICAL  NAKKATIVE,  A.  D.   41-51.  227 

Eeverence  for  omens  was  part  of  the  reactionary  creed, 
but  in  A.  D.  45  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  was  about  to  hap- 
pen, unfortunately  for  them,  on  the  emperor's  birthday. 
This  compelled  a  public  explanation  that  such  events,  in- 
stead of  being  ominous,  were  merely  due  to  the  regular 
motion  of  the  moon.^^^ 

In  A.  D.  49  augury,  after  an  extinction  of  twenty-five 
years,  was  for  a  time  restored.^^^  In  the  same  year 
Seneca  was  recalled.  He  had  been  banished  to  Corsica 
on  the  accession  of  Claudius,  because,  doubtless,  of  his 
lukewarm  patricianism,  though  a  different  reason  was 
assigned.  His  recall  has  been  attributed  to  Agrippina, 
the  ambitious  sister  of  Caligula,  who  in  this  year  married 
her  uncle,  the  emperor.  A  surmise  deserves  considera- 
tion, whether  it  may  not  have  been  due  to  public  indig- 
nation at  wholesale  murder,  misrule,  and  the  effort  to 
force  absurdities  on  the  community  as  entitled  to  relig- 
ious respect.  The  party  in  power  may  have  conceded  to 
popular  feeling  the  appointment  of  Seneca  and  Burrhus 
as  instructors  of  their  future  prince,'^^  that  they  might 
thus  retain  their  authority  under  Claudius  with  less  like- 
lihood of  overthrow. 

Whether  Seneca  made  unworthy  concessions  is  also  a 
point  for  consideration. ^^^  Some  of  his  utterances  touch- 
is?  Dio  Cass.  60,  26.  ^^g  Tacitus,  An.  12,  23. 
130  «  Agrippina  .  .  .  obtained  for  Annaeus  Seneca  a  reversal  of  his 
exile,  and  with  it  the  pretorship ;  favors  which  slie  supposed  would  prove 
ACCEPTABLE  TO  THE  PUBLIC.  .  .  .  She  also  wished  that  the  youthful 
mind  of  her  son  Domitius  [Nero]  should  be  trained  up  to  manhood  under 
such  a  preceptor."  —  Tacitus,  An.  12,  8,  Bohn's  trans.  Comimre  An. 
13,  2-4,  where  Seneca  and  Burrhus  are  mentioned  as  redores,  guardians, 
or  directors  of  the  emperor's  youth. 

1^1  "It  is  a  great  solace  of  my  miseries  to  notice  his  [the  emperor's] 
world-wide  mercy.  ...  I  do  not  fear  lest  it  should  overlook  me  alone. 
He,  however,  knows  best  the  time  when  to  relieve  each.  I  will  make 
every  effort  that  he  may  not  blush  on  extending  it  to  me."  —  Seneca, 
Ad  Pohjh.  Consolat.  22,  3.  "  The  object  of  the  address  to  Poly  bins  was  to 
have  his  sentence  of  exile  recalled,  even  at  the  cost  of  his  character."  — 
Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  Vol.  3,  p.  778,  col.  2,  art.  Seneca.  On  this  treatise 
a  French  writer  of  the  last  century  remarks  :  "At  first  [when  published] 


228  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  VIII. 

ing  persons  or  things  politically  distasteful  to  patricians 
indicate  the  influences  which  surrounded  him.^^ 


§  V.    A.  B.  52-  54:.     Expulsion  of  the  Jeius.     Claudius  as 

Belial. 

The  aristocracy,  on  the  accession  of  Claudius,  had 
avoided  expelling  the  Jews,  lest  they  should  embarrass 
the  position  of  their  co-conspirator,  Herod.  He  was  now 
dead,  and  the  events  of  A.  D.  52  afforded  the  desired  pre- 
text for  such  expulsion. 

Tacitus,  in  concluding  his  narrative  of  events  at  Rome 
for  the  year  51,  mentions  repeated  earthquakes,  and  con- 
nects their  mention  with  that  of  a  failure  of  crops  and  a 
consequent  scarcity  of  provisions,^^^  which  was  regarded 

every  one  was  scandalized.  Next  a  wish  was  expressed  that  the  treatise 
might  not  be  Seneca's.  Subsequently  a  doubt  was  expressed  whether  it 
were  his.  Only  one  step  remained,  namely,  to  allege  that  it  was  not  his." 
—  Diderot,  quoted  in  Le  Maire's  edition  of  Seneca,  0pp.  Philos.,  Vol. 
2,  p.  238.  Diderot  strives  to  prove  that  Seneca  did  not  write  the  work, 
but  his  arguments  are  unsatisfactory.  It  is  indeed  inconsistent  with  the 
Ludics  in  Mortem  Claudii,  but  the  latter  work  is  not  Seneca's.  It  is  in- 
consistent with  truth  and  self-respect.  Seneca  must  have  sacrificed  some- 
what of  both.  It  is  written  by  an  exile  under  Claudius  ;  is  addressed  to 
one  whom  we  know  that  Seneca  addressed  ;  is  written  in  Seneca's  style, 
and  its  criticism  on  Caligula  (c.  36)  resembles  the  tone  of  Seneca  else- 
where. His  political  friends,  anxious  for  his  return  and  co-ojieration,  may 
have  urged  him  to  make  concessions. 

i^'"'  "  Since,  however,  the  [Sabbath]  usage  of  that  most  villanous  race, 
sceleratissimm  gentis,  has  so  gained  strength  that  it  pervailes  all  lands, 
the  conquered  have  given  laws  to  the  conquerors."  —  Seneca,  quoted 
by  Augustine,  Dc  Civitate  Dei,  6,  n.  "  Let  us  prohibit  any  one  from 
lighting  candles  on  Sabbaths."  —  Seneca,  EpiM.  95,  47. 

133  '<  Many  prodigies  happened  in  that  year.  Birds  of  evil  omen  perched 
on  the  Capitol:  houses  were  thrown  down  by  repeated  eartli(|uakes,  and, 
through  fear  of  more  extended  ruin,  every  infirm  person  was  tram))led  down 
by  the  frightened  multitude.  Deficiency  of  provisions,  and  consequent 
famine,  were  deemed  an  omen,  prodigium.  Nor  were  complaints  made 
only  in  .secret  ;  but  while  Claudius  was  deciding  legal  cases  [the  grumblers] 
pressed  around  him  with  tumultuous  clamor,  and  after  having  driven  him 
to  the  extremity  of  the  Forum,  were  violently  pushing  against  him,  until, 


§  v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  52-54.  229 

as  ominous,  tliougli  he  does  not  tell  us  what  it  was  sup- 
posed to  portend.  The  scarcity  prevailed  in  the  winter, 
apparently,  of  51-52.  Possibly  that  historian  may  — 
to  avoid  repetition,  or  for  some  other  motive  —  have  con- 
cluded in  51  what  extended  into  52,  anticipating  some- 
what, as  he  has  elsewhere  done.^^  I  shall  assume  that 
these  earthquakes  —  whether  they  did  or  did  not  extend 
into  the  latter  year —  occurred  in  the  winter  of  51  -  52, 
since  tliat  agrees  best  with  such  other  data  as  we  can 
reliably  connect  therewith.^^^  If  the  reader  deems  the 
preceding  summer,  or  winter,  more  probable,  he  must  then 
place  the  subsequent  train  of  events  so  much  earlier. 

The  earthquakes  and  widespread  famine  must  have 
caused,  or  brought  to  its  culmination,  a  Messianic  excite- 
ment ;  and  Claudius,  according  to  Suetonius,  "  expelled 
from  Eome  the  Jews,  who,  under  the  impulse  of  Chris- 
tianity, were  keeping  up  a  constant  disturbance."  ^^^    The 

in  a  circle  of  soldiers,  he  broke  tlirough  the  angry  [surrounders].  It  is 
certain  that  not  more  than  fifteen  days'  food  remained  for  the  city.  By 
great  benignity  of  the  gods  and  mildness  (modestia)  of  the  winter,  the  ex- 
tremity M'as  done  away  with."  —  Tacitus,  Annals,  12,  43. 

1^  Tacitus  {Annals,  15,  22)  puts  into  the  year  A.  D.  62  an  earthquake, 
•which  Seneca  [Nat.  Qumst.  6,  1,  2),  writing  within  two  years,  or  perhaps 
within  one,  after  its  occurrence,  places  on  the  5th  of  Februarj',  A.  D.  63. 

1^  The  death  of  Philip,  connected,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  with  the  excite- 
ment consequent  on  these  earthquakes,  is  placed  by  distinct  evidence  in 
A.  D.  52  (Claudii,  12).  Paul,  after  staying  eighteen  months  at  Corinth 
(Acts  18,11),  sailed  thence  to  Syria  (Acts,  18, 18),  which  he  would  hardly 
have  attempted  in  early  winter.  The  feast  which  he  wished  to  attend 
(Acts  18, 2])  was  probably  a  passover,  and  if  so  his  departure  from  Corinth 
must  have  been  in  February  or  March  ;  his  arrival  there  eighteen  months 
earlier  must  have  been  in  August  or  September,  and  his  arrival  in  Mace- 
donia must  have  been  in  the  early  pai't  of  that  year  or  the  close  of  the 
preceding. 

1"^^  "  Judxos  im]}ulsorc  Chrcsto  assidue  tumultuantes,  Roma  expulit." 
—  Sueton.  Claudius,  25.  The  omission  by  Tacitus  to  mention  this  ex- 
pulsion is  noteworthy.  The  use  of  the  word  "Christ"  for  "Christianity"  is 
common  enough,  as  in  Paul's  letter  to  the  Philippians,  1,  15.  The  spell- 
ing of  Chrestus,  instead  of  Christus,  accords  with  a  common  pronuncia- 
tion of  the   word  among  the  heathens.     Tertullian,  in  his  Apology,  3, 


230  JUDAISM  AT  HOME.  [CH.  VIU. 

heathens  could  have  no  motive  for  exculpating  Jews  at 
the  expense  of  Christians.     Hence  the  allegation,  that 

remarks  that  the  word  "  Christian  as  regards  its  meaning  is  derived  from 
anointing,  and  even  when  it  is  wrongly  pronounced  by  you  '  Chrestian,' 
—  for  your  acquaintance  with  the  name  is  not  thorough,  —  it  woukl  still 
be  composed  from  [a  word  which  means]  suavity  or  benignity."  Lac- 
tantius  moreover,  in  his  Divine  Institutes,  Book  4,  ch.  7,  says  "  that  the 
meaning  of  this  name  [Christum]  needs  to  be  explained  on  account  of  an 
error  of  ignorant  men  who  are  accustomed  to  utter  it  with  the  change  of 
one  letter,  '  Chrestum.'  " 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  in  Greek  the  word  Christ  or  Christian  would, 
by  the  change  of  a  single  letter,  mean  good,  we  find  several  passages  in 
Christian  writers  which  seem  to  play  on  the  similarity  of  these  words. 
Thus  in  Clement  of  Alexandria  we  read,  Strom.  2,  is  ;  O/j^;.  1,  p.  438  : 
"  Believers  on  Christ  are,  and  are  called,  good,  xpV<^'''°'-  The  change  of 
one  letter  would  make  it  read  are,  and  are  called,  Christians."  The  same 
writer  in  his  Pcedag.  1,  44  ;  0^);).  1,  p.  12i,  quoting  the  passage  1  Peter 
2,  3  :  "If  ye  have  tasted  that  the  Lord  is  good,"  makes  it  by  altering 
one  letter  read,  "If  ye  have  tasted  that  Christ  is  the  Lord,"  8ti  Xpiarbs 
6  Kvpios.  And  again  in  Strom.  5,  67  ;  0pp.  2,  p.  6S5,  he  quotes  from 
Psalm  34,  8  (Septuagint,  33,9)  the  same  sentiment  with  the  same  alter- 
ation :  "  Taste  and  see  that  Christ  is  the  Lord."  Again,  Protrept.  §  123  ; 
Opp  1,  p.  95,  he  says  :  "  Good  xP'?c"''<5?  is  the  whole  life  of  men  who  have 
known  Christ,  xP'-'^tov"  ;  and  with  a  slight  additional  alteration  in  the  Pro- 
trept. §  87  ;  Opp.  1,  p.  72,  he  says  :  "  Taste  and  see  tliat  Christ  is  divine." 
In  this  latter  instance  he  substitutes  for  the  word  Kvpto^,  Lord,  the  word 
Geoy,  God,  which  means  also  divine.  Justin  Martyr,  in  his  Apologij, 
1,  4,  tells  the  Emperor,  "  so  far  as  concerns  the  name  alleged  against  us, 
we  are  xP'7''"''<5'''ttTot,  very  good."  And  agam,  Apology,  1,4,  "We  are 
accused  of  being  XP"'"^"^''*"',  Christians,  but  it  is  unjust  to  hate  rb  5h 
Xpi]<^TQv,  what  is  good."  Theophilus  probably  intended  the  same  play 
on  the  ordinary  pronunciation  of  this  word  when  he  says  1,  1  {Justin. 
Opp.  p.  338),  "  I  confess  that  I  am  a  Christian  .  .  .  who  hopes  to  be 
ivxpriaro^  serviceable  to  (or  a  good  Christian  before)  God."  There  is, 
moreover,  .still  extant  a  dialogue  entitled  Philopatris,  written  by  some 
heathen  in  the  fourth  century,  and  erroneously  ascribed  to  the  Lucian, 
who  lived  two  centuries  earlier.  In  this  dialogue  Christianity  is  defended 
by  Triephon  in  such  a  manner  as  might  be  expected  from  a  heathen  who 
wished  to  ridicule  it.  Critias  asks  liim,  "  Are  the  afTair.s  of  the  Scythians 
also  registered  in  heaven?"  Triephon  answers,  "All.  For  Christ 
\Xpi)<^Ti){\  liiis  been  among  the  Gentiles."  I  take  the  passage  from  Lard- 
ner's  Works,  Vol.  7,  p.  287. 


§  v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAKRATIVE,   A.  D.  52-54.  231 

Christianity  was  to  blame  for  the  disturbance,  must  have 
originated  with  conservative  Jews.^^'  The  same  allega- 
tion, apparently,  is  attributed  to  Jews  in  a  passage  of 
Acts  (17,  6,  7)  hereafter  to  be  considered,  and  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  notice  advice  of  Paul  (liom.  13,  1-7) 
to  Christians  at  Eome,  which  seems  prompted  by  this 
charge,  and  intended  to  guard  against  their  giving  just 
ground  for  its  repetition.  A  larger  proportion  of  Chris- 
tian than  of  non-Christian  Jews  were  likely  to  be  affected 
by  any  Messianic  excitement ;  since  tlie  worldly-minded 
would  be  slow  to  join  the  new  religion.  This  probably 
prompted  the  accusation. 

By  turning  to  the  history  of  Paul,  we  find  that,  a  few 
months  after  arriving  in  Macedonia,  he  met  some  of  the 
expelled  Jews  who  had  lately  arrived  in  Greece,^^^  so  that 
we  can  safely  consider  his  journey  through  these  two 
countries  as  of  about  the  same  date  with  the  troubles  at 
Piome.     Let  us  examine  it. 

At  Philippi,  a  half-crazy  girl,  prompted  doubtless  by 
her  employers,  followed  Paul  and  his  co-laborers  day  after 
day  through  the  streets,  shouting :  "  These  men  are 
slaves  ^^^  of  the  highest  god,  who  announce  to  us  the  way 

1^"  It  is  a  not  uncommon  weakness,  that  men  endeavor,  by  denouncing 
others,  to  divert  public  reproaches  from  themselves.  In  the  second  cen- 
tury the  severest  diatribes  against  the  Jews  came  from  that  section  of 
Christians,  namely,  the  semi-Jewish,  which  had  embodied  most  largely 
from  Jewish  theology  into  its  own,  and  which  on  that  account  was  most 
exposed  to,  and  most  sensitive  about,  being  confounded  with  Jews.  In 
our  own  day  and  country,  the  motion  of  censure  on  an  outspoken  anti- 
slavery  member  of  Congress  in  1842  came  from  a  member  of  that  politi- 
cal party  which  had  most,  not  from  that  which  had  least,  antislavery  in 
its  own  ranks. 

138  <i  Paul  having  left  Athens  came  to  Corinth,  and  finding  there  a 
certain  Jew  named  Aquila,  born  in  Pontus,  who  had  lately  come  from 
Italy,  as  also  his  wife  Priscilla,  —  because  Claudius  had  ordered  all  Jews 
to  leave  Rome,  —  he  joined  them,  and,  because  his  trade  was  the  same, 
remained  with  them  and  worked,  for  they  were  tent-makers." — ActB 
18,  1  -  :5. 

139  "Bondsmen  of  God"  was  among  Jews  a  technical  term  for  them- 
selves. See  in  Appendix,  Kote  B,  i.  No.  12.  When  used  in  ridicule  by 
a  heathen,  we  must  divest  it  of  reverential  associations. 


232  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

to  be  safe."  ^^^  The  utterance  contained  more  than  one 
sarcasm.  Much  of  Jewish  teaching  assumed  that  safety- 
could  only  be  attained  by  accepting  Judaism.  At  the 
present  moment,  expulsion  was  decreed,  or  threatened, 
expressly  because  of  holding  it.  The  Jews  spoke  of  their 
God  as  the  highest,  yet  he  had  not,  in  heathen  opinion, 
availed  to  protect  them  against  worshippers  of  inferior 
deities.  (Compare  on  p.  149  a  similar  sarcasm  quoted  from 
Cicero,  pro  Flacco,  28.)  Paul,  after  bearing  the  annoy- 
ance for  several  days,  cured  the  girl,  and  was  immediately, 
with  Silas,  brought  by  her  employers  before  the  magis- 
trates, not  on  the  charge  of  being  a  Christian,  but  on  a 
complaint  that  "  these  men,  being  Jews,  are  utterly  dis- 
turbing our  city,  and  teach  customs  which  it  is  not  per- 
missible for  us  Eomans  to  receive  or  observe."  ^^^  The 
bringing  of  such  a  charge  is  tolerable  evidence  of  a  po- 
litical cvirrent  setting  against  the  Jews.  The  obsequious- 
ness of  the  magistrates  corroborates  the  same.  With 
their  own  hands  they  pulled  the  clothes  from  Paul  and 
Silas,  ordered  them  a  beating,  and  learned  next  morning, 
to  their  dismay,  tliat  their  over-zeal  had  betrayed  them 
into  a  serious  offence  against  Eoman  law.^'*^ 

The  earthquake  which  shattered  the  foundation  of  the 
prison  agrees  in  violence  with  the  series  mentioned  by 
Tacitus.  The  question  of  the  jailer,  "  What  must  I  do 
to  be  saved  ?  "  ^^^  renders  probable  that  the  attention  of 
men  had,  during  the  excitement,  been  publicly  attracted 
to  Jewish  phraseology. 

1*'  Acts  16,  IT.  The  giii  was  alleged  to  he  possessed  by  a  spirit  of 
Apollo,  TTvdwvos,  an  idea  suggested,  perhaps,  by  the  temporary  anti-Jew- 
ish current,  and  the  de.sire  to  revive  heathen  claims  to  inspiration. 

^*^  Acts  16,  21.  The  law  prohibiting  observance  of  "Foreign  Rites" 
was  perhaps  applicable,  outside  of  Rome,  only  against  Romans,  not  against 
other  nationalities.  Neither  can  it,  outside  of  Rome,  have  applied  to 
Jew.s,  even  if  they  were  Roman  citizens. 

142  "  Beating  us  .  .  .  uncondemned  Roman  citizens,  they  im]irisoned 
us."  — Acts  16,  37.  The  accu.sation  of  teaching  Jewisli  customs  was,  it 
may  be  remarked,  inapplicable  to  Paul,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  any 
law  exi.sted  aimed  directly  against  what  he  was  doing. 

1"  Acts  16,  30. 


§  v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  52-54,  233 

At  Thessalonica,  Paul's  next  scene  of  labor,  the  Jewish 
small  traders,  or,  more  literally,  "the  Jews  of  the  market 
place  class  .  .  .  dragged  Jason  [Paul's  host]  and  certain 
brethren  before  the  city  rulers,  shouting  that  '  these 
[Christians]  who  have  turned  the  world  upside  down 
[alluding  to  the  uproar  at  Eome]  are  here  too,  whom 
Jason  has  received ;  and  all  of  them  violate  Caisar's  de- 
crees, alleging  that  there  is  another  king,  one  Jesus.' "  ^** 
The  chartie  is  brouoht  against  Christians  as  a  class.  It 
corroborates  the  inference  from  Suetonius,  that  the  Jews 
at  Rome  threw  the  blame  of  tlieir  commotion  on  the 
Christians.  It  implies  also  that  the  commotion  there 
was  ALREADY  known  at  Thessalonica ;  and  hence  it  is 
probable  that  the  earthquake  at  Philippi,  just  mentioned, 
was  among  the  last  of  the  series. 

At  Bertea,  Paul's  next  stopping-place,  he  met  ready 
listeners.  Luke's  language  leaves  it  uncertain  whether 
he  attributes  this  to  their  better  disposition,  or  to  a 
social  standing  which  presented  less  temj^tation  to  time- 
serving.^'*'^ 

At  Athens  a  remark  is  made,  "  This  man  seems  to  be 
a  proclaimer  of  foreign  divinities,"  ^^^  and  Paul  is  told, 
"  You  bring  things  to  our  liearing,  ^evcCovra,  akin  to  for- 
eign," ^*''  that  is,  "  which  resemble  Judaism."  The  hint, 
or  threat,  caused  Paul  to  introduce  his  subject  cautiously. 
"I  found  an  altar  to  'an  unknown  god.'  Whom,  there- 
in Acts  17,  5-7.  Paul's  converts  at  Thessalonica  were  chiefly  Gen- 
tiles (1  Tliess.  1,  9),  many  of  whom  had  previou.sly  (Acts  17, 4)  been  niono- 
theists.  Their  heathen  neighbors  (1  Thess.  2,  U)  persecuted  them  with 
hearty  political  zeal. 

W5  Acts  17,  11.  Evyevris  may  mean  either  "well  born"  or  "noble 
minded."  The  ambiguity  of  the  original  could  be  retained  by  translat- 
ing, "These  [Jews]  were  a  better  class  than  those  at  Thessalonica."  The 
reader  can  compare  Luke  19,  12;  1  Cor.  1,  26,  the  only  other  instances 
in  the  New  Testament  where  the  word  is  used. 

1*^  Acts  17,  18.     The  reason  assigned  for  their  remark  is  that  Paul 
made  the  glad  announcement  of  Jesus  [as  the  Messiah]  and  of  the  resur- 
rection.    A  Messiah  and  a  resurrection  were  recognized  as  "foreign," 
that  is,  Jewish  doctrines. 
1*'^  Acts  17,  20, 


234  JUDAISM  AT  KOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

fore  you  practically  recognize  ^^^  without  knowing  him, 
him  I  will  proclaim  to  you."  In  other  words,  I  will  not 
teach  a  "  foreign  deity,"  but  one  to  whom  you  have  already 
shown  marks  of  recognition. 

At  Corinth,  Paul,  after  teaching  in  the  synagogue  for 
some  time,  separated  from  tlie  Jewish  organization  and 
taught  in  the  school  of  a  certain'  Tyranuus.  This  move- 
ment is  readily  explained  by  the  existing  excitement 
which  rendered  it  temporarily  more  dangerous  for  heath- 
ens to  observe  the  Sabbath,  or  other  Jewish  customs,  and 
which  perhaps  prompted  the  Jews  to  greater  zeal  in  tlie 
enforcement  of  such  observances. 

A  consequence  of  this  action  on  Paul's  part  was  that 
some  Jews  brought  him  before  Gallio,^*^  the  proconsul, 
on  the  charge  that  "  this  man,  contrary  to  the  [Eoman] 
law,  persuades  men  to  recognize  God."^^*^  Gallio  refused 
attention  to  any  such  charge.  The  Gentile  bystanders 
probably  thought  that  the  charge,  when  it  came  from  a 
Jew,  could  not  well  be  exceeded  in  meanness,  since  the 
Jews  themselves  were  the  most  persistent  propagators  of 
this  very  recognition.^^^  They  took  Sosthenes,  and,  with- 
out any  interference  from  Gallio,  gave  him  a  beating. 
The  proconsul  thought  probably  that  he  richly  deserved 
it. 

Tacitus,  under  a.  d.  52,  mentions,  though  in  a  circuitous 
manner,  a  fear  entertained  by  the  Jews  lest  Claudius 

"8  Acts  17,  23.     See  Appendix,  Note  B,  i.  No.  6. 

1*^  Gallio  was  a  brother  of  Seneca  who  has  left  us  (Xat.  Quccst.  Intro- 
duct,  to  Book  4)  a  high  encomium  on  his  character. 

isj  Acts  18,  13. 

^^1  The  complaint  against  Paul  has  been  constantly  misunderstood  as 
a  charge  that  he  taught  something  at  variance  with  the  Mosaic  law  ;  not  a 
likely  charge  before  a  heathen  judge.  Owing  to  this  misapprehension 
a  few  manuscripts  and  versions  have  attributed  the  beating  to  Jews,  and 
others  omit  the  word  "  Greeks,"  without  substituting  another  in  its  j)lane. 
Let  the  reader  imagine  that  during  the  antislavery  discussion  in  this 
country  any  active  j)artisan  of  that  movement  had  accused  a  rival  leader 
of  it,  before  a  South  Carolina  court,  of  being  an  abolitionist.  Men 
would  have  felt  concerning  it  as  the  Gentiles  felt  touching  the  accusation 
against  Paul. 


§  v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,  A.  D.    52-54.  235 

should  attempt  to  put  liis  statue  in  the  temple  at  Jerusa- 
Iem.1^2  There  are  two  ways  of  accounting  for  this  fear. 
The  Jewish  aristocracy,  in  their  effort  at  self-exculpation 
after  the  death  of  Caligula,  may  have  created  an  impres- 
sion among  their  countrymen  that  an  emperor  of  Eome 
would  naturally  attempt  to  rival  God.  More  probably, 
however,  the  Eoman  aristocracy  undertook  this  insult  to 
Judaism  (cp.  Indirect  Testimoyiy,  III.  8)  and  were  foiled, 
with  aid  perhaps  of  Jewish  gold,  by  the  younger  Herod 
Agrippa,  long  in  the  family  of  Claudius. 

If  we  now  turn  to  Paul's  epistles,  we  shall  find  two  at 
least  —  those  to  the  Thessalonians  —  which  were  written 
at  this  period.^^^  Both  bear  marks  of  a  ISIessianic  ex- 
pectation more  intense  than  can  be  found  in  his  other 
writings.^^*     This  expectation  is,  moreover,  in  the  second 

1*2  Tacitus  omits  or  suppresses  all  mention  of  Jewish  expulsion  by 
Claudius.  He  mentions  a  local  trouble  between  two  Roman  governors, 
one  of  Judaja  and  Samaria,  the  other  of  Galilee,  giving  only  individual 
reasons  for  it,  but  adding:  "Fear  remained  [since  Caligula's  time]  lest 
any  one  of  the  emperors  should  give  the  same  commands."  —  Tac.  An. 
12,  54,  Only  Claudius  had  reigned  since,  whom  alone  Tacitus  must  have 
had  in  mind,  though  he  does  not  mention  him.  The  commands  are  unex- 
plained in  the  context ;  but  in  another  work  the  same  writer  says  that 
the  Jews  "being  commanded  by  Caius  Ctesar  (Caligula)  to  place  his 
effigy  in  [their]  temple,  took  up  arms  in  preference,  which  commotion 
the  death  of  Cresar  terminated. "— Tacitus,  ZTwi.  5,9. 

1^  The  epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  were  obviously  written  from 
Athens,  or  Corinth,  shortly  after  Paul  had  left  Thessalonica ;  see 
1  Thess.  3,  1,  2,  5,  6,  and  2  Thess,  2,  2,  which  last  seems  to  imply  that 
the  second  letter  was  written  partly  to  remove  misapprehension  of  the 
first,  and,  therefore,  while  the  former  was  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  Thes- 
salonians. 

154  ""VVe  living  who  remain  until  the  Lord's  coming  shall  not  precede 
those  who  have  fallen  asleep.  For  the  Lord  himself — with  summons 
given  by  an  archangel's  blast  upon  the  trumpet  of  God  —  shall  descend 
from  heaven  and  the  Chiistian  dead  shall  rise  first.  Then  we  living  who 
remain  shall  be  caught  up  with  them,  enveloped  by  clouds,  to  meet  the 
Lord  in  the  air;  and  thus  we  shall  ever  be  with  him.  .  .  .  But  ye 
brethren  are  not  in  darkness,  that  that  day  come  upon  you  like  a  thief." 
—  1  Thess.  4,  15-17;  5,  4.     Paul's  statement  (4,  15),  that  this  was  "in 


236  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

letter,  connected  by  Paul  with  the  Impersonation  of 
Heathenism  —  the  Heathen  emperor  —  who  was  to  pre- 
cede the  Messiah's  cominu;.^^^     If  we  remember  that  Paul 


accordance  with  the  Lord's  teaching,"  refers,  probably,  to  what  has  been 
recorded  in  Matt.  24,  30,  31.  The  event  recorded  in  Acts  1,  !i,  may  have 
caused  the  belief  that  Christians  were  to  be  enveloped  during  their  as- 
cension by  a  cloud.  In  a  preceding  verse  Paul  says  of  the  condemned, 
"The  [day  of]  anger  is  finally  upon  tliem."  —  1  Thess.  2,  16. 

155  ""WTg  beseech  you,  brethren,  by  the  appearing  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  our  gathering  to  him,  that  you  be  not  readily  shaken  out  of 
your  understanding  nor  put  into  trepidation,  neither  by  [supposed  im- 
pulse of  the]  spirit  [in  any  of  you],  nor  yet  by  teaching  or  epistle,  because 
of  its  coming  from  us,  as  if  the  day  of  the  Lord  were  close  upon  you. 
Let  no  one  mislead  you  in  any  wise,  for  [it  will  not  occur]  unless  there 
first  have  taken  place  The  falling  away  [from  monotheism  ?]  and 
unless  the  Sinful  Man,  the  Son  of  Destruction,  shall  have  appeared 
opposing  himself  to,  and  raising  himself  above,  everything  divine  or 
hallowed  [literally,  'called  God  or  shrine']  so  as  to  seat  himself  in  the 
temple  of  God  showing  himself  for  God." 

"Do  you  not  remember  that  while  I  was  yet  with  you  I  said  these 
things  to  you,  and  now  you  know  what  hinders  that  he  should  be  man- 
ifested in  his  own  time,  for  the  secret  of  Law-lessness  [the  as  yet 
undeveloped  manifestation  of  heathenism]  is  alieady  at  work.  Only 
let  him  who  thus  far  hinders  it  be  removed,  and  then  the  Law-less 
One  shall  be  manifested  whom  the  Lord  Jesus  will  destroy  b}'  the  breath 
of  his  mouth  and  shall  annihilate  by  the  brightness  of  his  appearing, 
[that  Lawless  One]  whose  appearing  among  those  who  are  to  be  de- 
stroyed is,  through  the  working  of  Satan,  [to  be]  with  all  power  and 
false  signs  and  wonders  and  with  every  unjust  means  of  misleading, 
because  they  would  not  accept  that  love  of  the  truth  which  would  save 
them ;  and  on  this  account  God  will  send  them  a  deceitful  working  [of 
miracles]  so  that  they  will  believe  what  is  false,  that  all  may  be  con- 
demned who  do  not  believe  the  truth,  but  find  pleasure  in  injustice."  — 
2  Thess.  2,  1  - 12. 

A  comparison  of  the  Sibylline  passage  (3,  03-02),  cited  on  pp.  138  - 140, 
will  leave  scarcely  a  doubt  that  Paul,  fax-  the  time  being,  shared  some  of 
the  Jewish  expectations  which  originated  since  Caligula's  time.  There 
are  some  to  whom  a  discovery  of  this  will  be  painful.  May  I  suggest  to 
such,  that  they  examine  the  facts  carefully,  but  without  mistrusting  the 
result.  It  was  for  the  Deity,  not  for  us,  to  determine  in  how  far  the 
minds  of  the  apostles  —  subordinate  agents  in  the  inti'oduction  of  Chris- 


§v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  52-54.  237 

was  especially  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  and  that  the 
letter  was  written  to  Gentiles  in  a  city  whence  he  liad 
been  driven  by  Jews,  we  can  better  conceive  the  power- 
ful hold  which  this  Jewish  conception  had  already  gained 
on  the  minds  of  men.  The  apostle  mentions,  as  already 
KNOWN  TO  THE  Thessalonians,  some  one  who  tempora- 
rily restrained  the  expected  manifestation  of  heathenism. 
This  person  must  have  been  the  younger  Agrippa,  long 
in  the  household  of,^^^  and  at  that  date  revisiting,  Clau- 
dius.^^^*  Paul  seems  to  have  had  a  good  opinion  of 
him  ;i^''  and  tlie  known  facts  of  his  life  show  him  to  have 
been  a  much  better  man  than  his  father. 

Paul's  belief  in  a  speedy  coming  of  his  master  did  not 
divert  his  attention  from  ordinary  duties  ;^^^  and  he  seems 
some  years  afterwards  to  liave  regarded  the  Christians  at 
Kome  as  not  wholly  free  from  blame,  or  at  least  as  need- 
ing to  be  cautioned.^°^     Excitement  in  tlie  community 

tianity  —  needed  to  be  freed  by  supernatural  agency  from  the  errors  of 
their  time. 

1^  Josephus,  Anfiq.  19,  9,  2.  i^»  Idem,  JVars,  2,  12,  7. 

157  "King  Agrippa,  do  you  believe  the  prophets?  I  know  that  you 
believe  them."  —  Acts  26,  27. 

158  <<"VVe  exliort  you  ...  to  emulate  quiet,  to  attend  to  your  own 
business,  to  work  with  your  own  hands  .  .  ,  that  your  relations  to 
THOSE  OUTSIDE  may  be  appropriate,  and  [also]  that  you  be  dependent  on 
no  one."  —  1  Thess.  4,  10-12.  "See  that  no  one  returns  evil  for  evil 
to  any  one ;  but  endeavor  to  show  kindness  not  only  to  each  other,  but  to 
ALL  MEX."  —  1  Thess.  5, 1.5. 

159  "  Let  every  one  show  subordination  to  the  authorities  over  him. 
No  authority  exists  save  by  [permission  of]  God.  Existing  ones  are  [to 
be  regarded  as]  God's  appointments,  so  that  whoever  is  insubordinate  to 
such  authority  opposes  God's  appointment.  But  such  opposers  will 
bring  judgment  on  themselves.  For  rulers  are  not  a  cause  of  terror  to 
[doers  of]  good  works,  but  to  [doers  of]  evil.  Do  you  wish  to  have  no 
fear  of  the  officer  ?  Do  what  is  good  and  you  shall  have  his  praise.  For 
he  is  God's  servant  for  your  good.  But,  if  you  do  evil,  fear  him,  for  it 
is  not  without  object  that  he  carries  a  sword  ;  since  he  is  God's  avenging 
servant  for  the  punishment  of  the  evil  doer.  Wherefore  subordination 
should  be  shown,  not  merely  from  dread  of  punishment,  but  for  con- 
science sake. 

"This  also  is  the  reason  of  your  paying  tribute.     For  they  are  God's 


238  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

must  have  been  strong,  if  one  so  practical  as  Paul  shared 
it  so  largely. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  Chronicon  of  Eusebius,  as  given 
by  Jerome,  we  shall  find  under  the  twelfth  year  of  Clau- 
dius,^^^'  tliat  is,  in  the  year  a.  d.  52,  that  the  apostle  Philip 
was  affixed  to  a  cross  and  stoned  at  Hierapolis  in  the 
small  province  called  Asia.^*^^  Crucifixion  implies  Eoman 
agency,  and  stoning  implies  participation  by  Jews.  The 
Chronicon  ignores  all  those  other  events  of  the  year 
which  have  been  given.  It  cannot,  therefore,  liave  been 
biassed  by  them  in  assigning  the  date.  The  disposition 
to  make  Christians  responsible  for  the  Messianic  excite- 
ment must  have  reached  from  Pome  to  Hierapolis.  This 
latter  city,  according  to  a  Jewish  writer,  was  "  wedded  to 
wealth  alone,"  ^^^  which  means,  doubtless,  that  it  was  very 
conservative.  Paul,  though  mentioning  Christians  there,^^^ 
does  not  speak  of  having  ever  set  foot  within  its  borders. 

Hitherto  any  Jewish  indignation  against  Christians 
would  seem  to  have  come  exclusively  from  conservatives. 
There  is,  however,  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  a  passage,  be- 
longing either  to  A.  D.  52,  or  A.  D.  65,  and  certainly  not 
from  a  conservative  hand,  which  wears  the  appearance  of 


ministers  attending  to  this  'business.  Eender,  therefore,  your  dues  to 
all ;  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due ;  custom  to  whom  custom ;  fear  [in 
the  sense  of  obedience]  to  whom  fear;  honor  to  whom  honor."  —  Rom. 
13,1-7. 

i«»  See  Jerome's  Works,  ed.  Vallarsius,  Vol.  8,  col.  665,  666.  The 
reader  must  not  be  misled  by  the  year  54  affixed  thereto.  The  same 
year  is  meant  which  other  chronologers  call  52,  namely,  the  twelfth  of 
Claudius. 

1^^  riiilip  was  the  apostle  to  whom  Gentiles  (literally  Greeks)  came 
when  they  wished  to  see  Jesus,  as  we  are  told  in  John  12,  -21.  It  is  not 
improbable,  therefore,  that  he  would  be  among  the  first  of  the  twelve  to 
commence  work  in  a  heatlien  land.  Polycrates  who  became  pastor  or 
bishop  of  Ephesus  near  the  close  of  the  second  century  (Euscb.  Ecc.  Hist. 
5,  -li),  is  quoted  by  Eusebius  {Ecc.  Hist.  5,  24)  as  saying  that  the  apostle 
Philip  had  "fallen  asleep"  at  Hierapolis. 

1"^  Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  318. 

163    Col  OSS.   4,  13. 


§v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  52-54.  239 

an  unfriendly  allusion  to  them,  or  to  the  Gentile  portion 
of  them.^s* 

The  reaction  against  Judaism  in  A.  D.  52  helps  to  ex- 
plain the  extra  scale  on  which  people  were  made  to  kill 
each  other  for  popular  amusement.^^  If  Paul's  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  were  written,  as  generally  supposed, 
shortly  after  those  to  the  Thessalonians,  we  have  in  it  tes- 
timony to  a  sudden  growth  among  Christians  there  of  zeal 
for  Jewish  observances,  which  implies  some  such  sudden 
alienation  from  Gentiles  as  the  events  of  the  year  at 
Eome  would  explain.^^^ 

An  indirect  result  of  the  excitement  in  A.  D.  52  was  the 
origin  at  the  close  of  that  year,  or  early  in  53,  of  an  institu- 
tion which,  in  one  or  a  different  shape,  is  now,  with  slight 
exceptions,  universal  throughout  Christendom  ;  the  insti- 
tution of  religious  gatherings  on  the  first  day  of  the  week, 
subsequently  called  Sunday.  Paul  previously,  though 
teaching,  doubtless,  when  opportunity  offered,  had  not,  so 
far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  record,  set  apart  any  day 
but  the  Sabbath  for  his  regular  public  ministrations.-'^" 

164  "  The  harvest  is  near  when  instead  of  Prophets, 

Certain  deceivers  shall  arrive  blabbing  upon  earth. 

And  Beliar  shall  come  and  shall  do  many  wonders 

[Before  mortals.     Then  shall  subversion  of  righteous  men, 

And  robbery  of  the  chosen  and  faithful,  take  place  ; 

Of  these,  to  wit  (?)  Hebrews,  and  terrible  anger  shall  come  upon  them.]" 

SibyL  Orac.  2,  165-170. 
If  the  above  translation  be  adopted,  the  whole  passage  may  be  from  one 
hand,  that  of  a  Jew.  If  in  the  last  line  the  translation  "and  "  be  substi- 
tuted for  "to  wit,"  the  part  in  brackets  would  seem  to  come  from  a  Jew- 
ish Christian,  and  must  belong  to  A.  D.  64  or  65.  The  first  three  lines 
may,  in  that  case,  have  previously  existed,  or  may  be  an  allusion  to  Paul's 
teaching.  On  this  latter  supposition  also  the  whole  passage  might  be 
from  one  hand,  that  of  a  Jewish  Christian.     Compare  Ch.  VI.  §  V. 

165  See  Ch.  V.  note  12. 

166  <<j  wonder  that  you  have  so  soon  transferred  yourselves  ...  to 
another  glad-tidixgs,  which  is  no  glad-tidings."  — Galat.  1,  c.  Paul 
had  passed  through  Galatia  (Acts  16,  G)  shortly  before  entering  Greece. 

1^^  Even  at  Thessalonica,  shortly  before  Paul's  arrival  at  Corinth, 
though  his  converts  were  mostly  Gentiles  (see  note  144),  yet  his  public 


240  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

Circumstances'  at  Corinth  called  for  a  different  course. 
He  had  sej)arated  from  the  Jews  and  founded  a  society 
mainly  of  Gentiles,  which  met  in  the  house  of  a  Gentile 
Christian  near  the  synagogue.^®  If  these  Gentiles  had 
kept  the  Sabbath,  the  law  to  which  they  were  amenable 
would  probably,  during  the  existing  reaction  against  Juda- 
ism, have  been  enforced  against  them.  This  may  have 
prompted  Paul,  who  did  not  regard  the  Sabbath  as  bind- 
ing, to  initiate  a  different  stated  day  for  meeting.  The 
first  allusion  to  this  stated  day  is  in  his  letter  to  the 
Christians  at  this  place.^*^^  After  leaving  Corinth  he 
separated  in  like  manner  from  the  Jews  at  Ephesus,  and 
taught  in  the  school  of  one  Tyrannus,  a  Gentile,  as  we 
may  judge  from  his  name.  Subsequently  to  this  separa- 
tion we  find  a  second  allusion  to  the  first  day  of  the  week 
as,  apparently,  a  stated  day  of  meeting.^'^  The  locality 
of  the  custom  is  a  small  seaport,  considerably  north  of 
Ephesus,  through  which  much  of  the  travel  between  the 
latter  city  and  Macedonia  seems  to  have  passed. 

Claudius  died  in  A.  D.  54.  Earely  has  any  community 
rivalled  Pandemonium  more  successfully  than  Pome  did 
during  his  reign.  Justice  was  venal.  No  pretence  of  it 
was  made  towards  slaves  or  freedmen.^''^  A  foreigner 
had  no   chance  of  it  unpurchased   against   a   citizen.^''^ 

services  were  (Acts  17,  2)  on  the  Sabliath.  The  gathering  of  the  apostles 
(Jolin  20,  19,  2g)  bears  no  resemblance  to  a  setting  apart  of  the  day  for 

PUBLIC  SERVICES. 

108  Acts  18,  6,  7. 

169  1  Cor.   16,  2. 

1™  Acts  20,  7. 

1"'  Sueton.  Claud.  25,  quoted  in  note  on  p.  87. 

i''^  "  Since  in  all  things  the  Romans  had  preference  given  thein  over 
foreigners,  many  petitioned  him  for  it  [Roman  citizenship]  and  bought  it 
from  Messalina  and  the  emperor's  favorites  ;  and  on  this  account,  though 
bought  at  first  for  great  sums,  it  afterwards  by  repetition  became  .so  cheap 
as  to  cause  a  proverb  that  'by  giving  a  broken  glass  vessel  you  will  be 
made  a  citizen.'"  —  Dio  Cassius,  60,  17.  About  five  years  after  the 
death  of  Claudius  a  military  tribune  told  Paul,  "  I  paid  a  large  sum  for 
this  citizenship."  —  Acts  22,  28.  The  De  Morte  Claiulii  Ludus  (3,) 
represents  one  of  the  Fates  as  saying  that  she  had  forborne  a  little  to 


§  VI.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAERATIVE,  A.  D.   54-62.  241 

Consequently  sale  of  citizenship  became  a  vast  trafl&c, 
Lrinjiing  enormous  revenues  to  such  as  controlled  it. 
Brutality  equalled  venality.  The  watchword  which  Clau- 
dius repeatedly  gave  the  soldiers  ^"^  may  have  been  due 
only  to  prevalent  vindictiveness,  or  may  have  been  in- 
tended to  confront  the  humanizing  precepts  of  mono- 
theism. 

§  VI.   A.  I).  54:- 62.    Earlier  Years  of  Nerds  Reign. 

The  accession  of  JSTero,  with  such  ministers  and  coun- 
sellors as  Burrhus  and  Seneca,  placed  the  government 
more  in  accord  with  human  rights  and  human  improve- 
ment. Taking  life  in  public  games,  whether  at  Eome 
or  elsewhere,  was  prohibited.^"*  Distaste  for  wars  of  con- 
quest showed  itself  by  a  proposition  to  withdraw  the 
troops  from  Britain.^'^  A  man  entitled  to  freedom  had 
his  right  recognized,  much  to  the  disgust  of  ultra-patri- 
cianism.^'^ 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  possible  that  converts 
to  Judaism  or  to  monotheism  may  have  been  less  on  their 
guard.  The  reactionaries  singled  out  for  their  attack  a 
lady  of  raidc,  Pomponia,  a  relative  doubtless,  and  perhaps 
a  sister  of  the  Pomponius  whom  they  had  persecuted  in 
the  reigns  of  Tiberius  and  Caligula.  A  friend  of  this 
lady,  a  granddaughter  of  Tiberius,  had  in  the  reign  of 
Claudius  been  banished  and  murdered,  without  oppor- 
tunity of  answer  to  the  charges  against  her.^"    Pomponia 

despatch  Claudius,  that  he  might  have  time  to  make  a  present  of  citizen- 
ship to  the  few  of  mankind  who  had  not  yet  received  it. 

173  i<  fpo  strike  a  man  when  he  has  already  oifered  provocation."  —  Dio 
Cass.  60,  IG.  Compare  Homer,  Odyssey,  16,  72,  21,  13.3,  whence  it  is 
taken  with  omission  of  its  connection.  Another  historian  says,  that  the 
above  watchword  was  almost  sure  to  be  given  "  when  at  any  time  he  had 
taken  vengeance  on  an  enemy  or  a  conspirator. "  —  Sueton.  Claud.  42, 
Bohn's  trans. 

^"*  See  quotations  and  references  on  p.  79. 

"5  Sueton.  Nero,  18. 

"8  Tac.  An.  13,  27,  quoted  on  p.  87. 

1"  Dio  Cass.  60, 18  ;  Sueton.  Claud.  29. 

11  P 


242  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  VIII. 

had  put  on  mourning  for  her  friend  so  unjustly  treated, 
and  had  worn  it  ever  afterwards.  This  could  not  legally 
be  charged  against  her,  though  it  and  the  sympathy 
which  it  implied  towards  the  popular  party  had  probably 
much  to  do  witli  the  accusation.  She  was  charged  with 
Foreign  Superstition.  The  administration  did  not,  per- 
haps, feel  strong  enough  simply  to  ignore  or  dismiss  such 
a  charge  ;  but  under  old  precedent  tlie  matter  was  turned 
over  to  her  husband,  who  in  the  presence  of  relatives 
acquitted  her.^'^ 

In  A.  D.  62  Nero,  after  repudiating  his  previous  wife, 
married  Poppsea.  She  was  professedly,  as  will  hereafter 
appear,  a  monotheist,  tliough,  after  due  allowance  for  mis- 
representation by  Tacitus,  she  can  have  done  little  honor 
to  her  profession,  and  seems  to  have  imitated  Jewish  cus- 
toms rather  than  moral  aims.  The  friendsliip  of  her 
father  with  Sejanus  ^'^  implies  that  he  belonged  to  the 
popular  party,  and  is  another  instance  of  a  connection 
between  monotheism  and  popular  riglits. 

§  VII.    A.  D.  63  -  70.     Fire  at  Rome.     Jewish  War.    Per- 
secution of  Christians. 

In  the  beginning  of  A.  D.  63,  fearful  earthquakes  shook 
Southern  Italy.^^*'    The  universal  apprehension  may  have 

"^  Tac.  An.  13,  :w.  See  in  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-notes  86,  88,  and 
text  prefixed,  a  haffled  effort  of  the  Senate  to  forbid  mourning. 

1"  Tac.  An.  13,  45. 

180  i<  -^g  have  heard,  Lucilius,  most  excellent  of  men,  that  Pompeii,  » 
celebrated  city  of  Campania,  has  settled  .  .  .  because  of  an  earthquake, 
by  whicli  the  adjoining  regions  have  suffered,  and  this  during  the  M'inter, 
when  our  ancestors  were  accustomed  to  promise  inmiunity  from  such  evils. 
On  the  nones  [that  is,  on  the  5th]  of  February,  in  the  consulsliip  of  Reg' 
ulus  and  Virginius,  this  shock  occurred,  which  devastated  with  great 
havoc  Campania,  [a  section]  never  secure  from  this  evil,  but  liitherto  un- 
harmed  and  let  off  with  a  fright.  Part  of  Herculaneum  is  in  ruins,  and 
the  remainder  is  in  a  precarious  condition.  .  .  .  Solace  must  be  found  fot 
those  in  trepidation,  and  the  intense  fright  must  be  remedied.  For  what 
can  seem  safe  to  any  one  if  the  world  itself  shakes  and  its  most  solid  por- 
tion gives  way  ?  .  .  .  No  [other]  evil  is  without  some  means  of  escape.  .  .  . 


§  VII.]  CHEONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  63-70.  243 

stimulated  Messianic  expectations  among  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians. 

In  the  month  of  June,  64,  the  city  of  Eome  was  nearly- 
destroyed  by  a  fire.  Out  of  fourteen  sections  of  the  city 
only  four  remained  untouched.  Tlie  other  ten  were  nearly 
or  wholly  destroyed.  Here  was  an  event  —  Rome's  de- 
struction —  which  for  more  than  a  century  had  by  many 
Jews  been  deemed  the  precursor  of  their  Messiah's  com- 
ing. Party  strife  and  Sibylline  predictions  found  place  in 
the  capital,^^^  whilst  in  Judaea  the  autumn  cannot  have 

This  [alone]  is  widespread,  inevitable,  .  .  .  for  it  not  only  swallows  homes, 
or  families,  or  cities,  hut  nations,  and  overthrows  whole  sections  of  coun- 
try. At  onetime  it  buries  them  under  ruins,  at  another  it  hides  them  in 
a  deep  gulf,  and  leaves  no  trace  whereby  the  former  existence  of  what  has 
passed  away  can  be  discerned.  Above  most  distinguished  cities,  the  soil 
extends  with  no  vestige  of  former  habitation. 

"Nor  are  there  wanting  those  who  fear  this  kind  of  death  more,  by 
which  they  go,  homes  and  all,  into  the  abyss,  and  are  borne  alive  from 
the  number  of  the  living ;  as  if  all  fate  did  not  lead  to  the  same  goal. 
...  It  matters  not  whether  one  stone  destroy  me,  or  whether  I  am 
crushed  by  a  mountain,  .  .  .  whether  I  give  up  my  spirit  in  the  light 
and  the  unconfined  [air]  or  in  the  vast  bosom  of  the  gaping  earth  ;  whether 
I  descend  alone  into  the  deep,  or  with  a  great  accompaniment  of  perish- 
ing nations.  It  matters  not  what  tumult  accompanies  iny  death.  It  itself 
is  the  same  everywhere. 

"  Let  us  take  courage  against  a  destruction  which  can  neither  be  avoided 
nor  foreseen.  Let  us  cease  listening  to  those  who  have  renounced  Cam- 
pania, who  after  this  calamity  have  emigrated  and  affirm  that  they  will 
never  go  near  that  region.  Who  will  promise  that  this  or  that  ground 
stands  on  better  foundation  ?  .  .  .  We  err  if  we  think  that  any  part  of 
the  earth  is  excepted  and  exempt  from  this  danger."  —  Seneca,  Nat. 
Quoest.  6,  1,  1-3,  G-io. 

^^^  According  to  Dio  Cassius,  the  common  people  revived  the  verse 
which  had  caused  disturbance  in  the  time  of  Tiberius  :  — 
"  When  thrice  three  huntlred  years  are  accomplished. 
Internal  sedition  shall  destroy  the  Romans. 

"And  when  Nero  by  way  of  admonition  told  them  that  these  words 
were  nowhere  found  [in  the  Oracles],  they,  changing  them,  sang  another 
Oracle  as  veritably  Sibylline. 

"  It  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  Last  of  the  ^neadte  a  matricide  shall  reicrn." 

Dio  Cass.  62,  18. 


244  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  VIII. 

passed  without  premonitions  of  rebellion.^^^  Anti- Jewish 
policy  at  Rome  soon  displaced  a  previous  favoritism  to- 
wards the  Jews.  Poppiea,  their  convert  and  advocate, 
was,  it  is  alleged,  killed  by  a  kick  from  Nero. 

Tlie  rebellion  in  Judeea  broke  out  formally  in  the  spring 
of  65.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  a  Eoman  legion  from 
Syiia  marched  to  Jerusalem,  with  no  great  zeal  apparently 
for  its  capture,  and  retreated  again.^^^  The  conservative 
Jews  undertook  to  quiet  matters,  and  for  a  year  or  more 
seem  to  have  been  allowed  their  way.  Josephus,  who 
acted  at  first  with  these  conservatives,  and  went  as  their 
envoy  to  Galilee,  was  bought  over  by  the  revolutionists. 
At  the  expiration  of  about  a  year  Florus  was  murdered, 
probably  by  some  of  the  guerillas  whom  Josephus  com- 
manded.^^* Thereupon  the  Eoman  forces  under  Ves- 
pasian, A.  D.  67,  marched  into  Galilee,  the  bands  under 
Josephus  scattered,  and  he,  according  to  his  own  account 
(Wars,  3,  6,  3 ;  3,  7,  2,  3),  fled  to  Jotapata,  where,  after  a 
short  siege  at  that  or  a  later  date,  he  was  taken  prisoner. 
By  this  time  the  death  of  Nero  and  the  course  of  events 
at  Eome  led  Vespasian  to  aim  at  imperial  power.  While 
its  attainment  was  undecided,  he  either  did  not  care  to  in- 
crease Jewish  enmity  towards  himself,  or  else  did  not  wish 
to  spare  troops  for  the  Jewish  war.    It  was  intermitted  for 


1^^  Josephus,  who  was  born  in  the  first  year  of  Caligula,  that  is,  in  the 
year  A.  d.  37,  went  to  Rome  shortly  after  he  was  twenty-six  years  old,  not 
later,  therefore,  than  the  winter  of  63  -  64;  After  seeing  Poppiea,  and 
obtaining  what  he  asked,  he  returned  directly,  as  it  seems,  to  Judrea,  and 
found  the  revolutionary  disturbances  already  beginning.  See  Josephus, 
Life,  §§  1,  3,  4. 

183  Josephus,  JFars,  2,  19,  7-9  ;  7,  1,  3. 

1^*  Suetonius,  who  habitually  groups  facts  without  reference  to  chrono- 
logical arrangement,  says  {Vespasian,  4),  that  the  Jews  "had  rebelled, 
having  murdered  their  governor,  and  moreover  had  put  to  flight  and  cap- 
tured a  military  eagle  from  the  consular  lieutenant  of  Syria,  who  was 
bringing  assistance." 

If  by  the  consular  lieutenant  be  meant  Cestius  Gallus,  who  wa.s  defeated 
in  the  autumn  of  65,  the  murder  of  Gessius  Florus  cannot  have  occurred 
for  nearly  or  quite  a  year  afterwards. 


§  vxi.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  63-70,  245 

some  time,  and  completed  by  his  son  Titus,  who  in  A.  D.  70 
captured  Jerusalem.^^^ 

We  will  now  return  to  events  at  Piome  consequent  on 
the  fire.  That  an  auti-Iioman  excitement  among  Jews 
should  afford  to  patricians  occasion  for  a  reaction  against 
them  is  natural.  That  some  of  the  reactionaries  should 
have  attributed  the  fire  to  a  people  who  had  long  anti- 
cipated and  predicted  Eome's  destruction,  is  also  natu- 
ral. But  so  far  as  we  have  information,  the  only  pros- 
ecutions were  directed  against  such  Jews  as  had  become 
Christians,  and  some  remarks  are  requisite  in  explanation 
of  this.  Poppasa,  Nero's  wife,  was  a  convert  to  Judaism, 
and  was  surrounded  by  Jews,^^^ — facts  which  throw  light 
on  two  statements  of  Tacitus  concerning  her.^^^  That  the 
class  of  Jews  who  surrounded  her  should  have  sought  her 
aid  in  attempts  to  divert  the  storm  from  themselves  is  a 
matter  of  course.  That  they  should  have  obtained  it  is 
probable.  That  the  Cliristian  portion  of  their  country- 
men should  be  selected  as  scapegoat  was  inevitable,  since 
no  other  was  to  be  found.  A  similar  charge  against 
Christians  in  a.  d.  52  had  obtained  partial  credence.  At 
present  any  aid  from  Poppa^a  was  perhaps  supplemented 
by  Tigellinus.^^^ 

i^s  See,  for  further  details  of  this  Jewish  rebellion,  the  Appendix, 
Note  L 

!•*  On  the  monotheism  of  PoppsBa,  see  the  direct  affirmation  of  Jo- 
sephus,  Antiq.  20,  8,  11,  quoted  in  Note  B,  i.  2,  of  the  Appendix.  As 
to  her  Jewish  surroundings,  compare  Josephus,  Life,  §  3,  according  to 
which  Josephus  gained  her  acquaintance  through  a  Jew,  and  preferred  a 
petition  to  her  rather  than  to  Nero. 

1^^  Tacitus  tells  us  (,An.  13,  ^h)  that  whenever  Poppsea  went  out,  her 
face  was  partially  veiled  ;  and  {An.  16, 6)  when  she  died,  her  body,  instead 
of  being  burnt  according  to  Roman  customs,  was  embalmed  with  spices. 
Both  of  these  accord  with  Jewish  customs.  Tacitus  endeavors  to  hide 
this  by  comparing  her  embalming  to  that  of  foreign  kings. 

1^  Tigellinus,  Nero's  chief  political  favorite  at  this  time,  had  hitherto 
co-operated  with  Poppsea.  Possibly  he  had  a  special  motive  of  his  own 
also  for  acting  against  Christians.  The  following  remarks  of  Juvenal 
have  always  been  understood  as  relating  to  them,  and  imply  plainness  of 
speech  in  one  or  more  of  their  number  :  — 


246  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

The  two  charges  brought  against  Christians  strengthen 
the  belief  that  they  originated  in  an  effort  to  divert  odium 
from  Jews.  The  first  was  that  they  had  destroyed  liome. 
This  was  an  event  which  one  class  of  Jews  since  more 
than  a  century  had  predicted  and  longed  for.  Of  this 
crime  the  Christians  were  adjudged  innocent,  but,  ac- 
cording to  Tacitus,  they  were  found  guilty  of  "  hatred 
to  mankind"  ;^^^  a  charge  borrowed,  like  the  other,  from 


"  Describe  Tigellinus,  you  will  shine  in  that  kind  of  a  torch 
Wherein  they,  standing,  burn,  who  smoke,  fastened  by  their  throats. 
And  [who  does  so]  draws  [butj  a  broad  furrow  in  the  midst  of  sand." 

Juvenal,  Satire,  1,  1,5.5-1.57. 

The  last  line  admits  more  than  one  translation.  I  understand  it  as 
meaning  that  the  outspoken  individual  has  lost  his  labor.  The  passage 
seems  inapplicable,  except  to  the  Cliristians  who  were  thus  burned  iu  the 
gardens  of  Nero. 

1^3  The  statements  of  Tacitus  are  anything  but  lucid.  He  assumes 
in  the  first  place  —  though  without  assigned  reason  and  contrary  to 
probability  —  that  Nero  set  fire  to  the  city.  This  is  at  first  doubtfully 
expressed  {An.  15,  40):  "Nero  seemed  to  seek  the  glory  of  founding 
a  new  city  and  of  calling  it  by  his  name." 

Next  we  are  told  {An.  15,  44):  "Neither  by  human  aid  nor  by 
liberality  of  the  prince  nor  by  pacifications  of  the  gods  could  the  dis- 
grace be  removed  of  a  general  belief  that  he  had  ordered  the  conflagra- 
tion. Therefore,  to  end  this  rumor,  Nero  substituted  as  criminals, 
and  inflicted  the  severest  torments  on,  those — ^  hated  because  of  their 
crimes  —  whom  the  common  people  call  Christians."  According  to  this, 
the  Christians  were  innocent.  The  term  "substitute"  seems  to  assume 
Nero's  guilt. 

Tacitus  afterwards  continues:  "Therefore,  at  first,  some  were  seized 
who  confessed  [what  ?].  Then  by  their  testimony  a  great  multitude 
were  convicted,  not  so  much  of  having  set  the  city  on  fire  [were  they 
convicted  of  partly  doing  this  ?J  as  of  hatred  for  the  human  race."  If 
we  understand  that  those  first  .seized  confessed  having  fired  the  city, 
their  confession  would  flatly  contradict  the  prior  statement  by  Tacitus, 
that  they  had  been  substituted  as  criminals.  If  we  understand  Tacitus 
to  affirm  that  they  confessed  hatred  towards  the  human  race,  a  plausible 
explanation  is  that  they  admitted  believing  the  salvation  of  Christians, 
and  perdition  of  all  others.  It  was  easy  to  select  for  seizure  a  few  narrovv- 
mindid  and  vehement  persons,  to  whose  views  sliglit  perversion  would 


§vn.]  CHKOKOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  63-70.  247 

a  prevalent  allegation  against  Jews.^^*^  Whether  the 
charge  that  Nero  set  fire  to  the  city  had  been  openly  cir- 
culated before  the  Christians  were  persecuted,  whether 
it  was  skilfully  used  by  those  who  prompted  their  per- 
secution, or  whether  it  grew  up  afterwards,  may  admit 
question.  According  to  Dio  Cassius  no  mention  was  made 
of  Nero  as  the  incendiary.-'^^  Tlie  remark,  too,  already 
quoted,  of  Tacitus  in  his  Annals,  15,  40,  points  rather  to 
a  suspicion,  which  was  only  likely  to  grow  months  later, 
after  the  rubbish  had  been  removed  and  Nero's  plans  for 
a  new  city,  including  a  very  extensive  palace,  had  been 
matured  and  made  public.  Possibly  there  was  time 
for  this  suspicion  to  grow  before  the  Christians  were  ar- 
raigned.^^^  Yet  it  is  plain  that  if  Nero  had  charged 
Christians  with  firing  the  city,  they  would  have  been  des- 


give  the  appearance  of  hatred  to  mankind,  A  more  probable  view  is  that 
Tacitus,  wishing  to  malign  Nero  and  the  Christians,  was  indifferent  to 
truth  or  consistency  in  his  statements.  His  phraseology  treats  hatred 
to  mankind  and  the  firing  of  the  city  as  two  different  grades  of  the 
SAME  CRIME  Cognizable  under  the  law. 

19"  Josephus  says  of  Apion :  "He  belies  our  oath  [charging  us]  as 
swearing  by  the  God  who  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth  and  the  sea,  to 
bear  no  good-will  to  other  nations;  especially  not  to  Greeks."  —  Ar/ainst 
Ainon,  2,  10  (Whiston's  trans.  2,  11).  Elsewhere  he  quotes  from  the 
same  writer  a  silly  charge  that  some  Greek  whom  the  Jews  were  fattening 
in  their  temple  had  been  found  and  rescued  by  Antiochus ;  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  tale  of  this  rescued  man,  they  annually  fattened  and  sacrificed 
a  Greek;  after  tasting  whose  entrails  (compare  Ch.  X.  note  126)  they 
swore  hatred  against  Greeks.  See  Josephus,  Against  Apion,  2,  s  (there 
are  two  chapters  8  in  the  Latin).  As  Antiochus  lived  in  the  second  cen- 
tury before  Christ,  there  was  no  risk  of  eye-witnesses  remaining  to  con- 
tradict the  story. 

191  I  <  ipjjg  people  steadily  cursed  Nero,  not  that  they  [even]  whispered 
his  name,  but  they  cursed  those  who  had  set  fire  to  the  city."  —  Dio 
Cass.  62,  18. 

^^'^  Tacitus  details  at  length  (An.  15,  43)  the  removal  of  rubbish  from 
the  city  in  vessels  to  the  marshes,  as  also  the  plans  for  the  remodelled 
city.  In  chapter  44  he  continues:  "Afterwards,  7nox,  expiations  for  the 
gods  were  sought."  The  persecution  of  the  Christians  is  mentioned  as 
something  still  later. 


248  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

titute  of  aid  from  patricians,  and  M-ould  not  have  been 
pronounced  innocent  thereof.  Their  acquittal  under  this, 
the  only  charge  in  which  Nero  could  liave  been  person- 
ally interested,  shows  that  he  was  not  their  accuser.  The 
real  accusers,  whoever  they  might  be,  had  been  defeated 
on  this  point. 

Extant  statements  of  Paul  and  also  the  seizure  of 
Christian  leaders  in  lands  distant  from  Eome,  where  they 
could  not  have  taken  part  in  firing  the  city,  are  best 
explained  on  the  supposition  that  Jews  were  trying  to 
throw  blame  on  the  Christians. 

Paul's  seizure  can  be  partly  elucidated  from  his  own 
writings.  He  had  previously  come  to  Eome  a  prisoner, 
probably  in  the  spring  of  62.  The  Jewish  tendencies  and 
surroundings  of  Poppiea  facilitated  the  ministry  on  which 
he  entered  in  the  palace.^^^  At  one  time  he  seems  to 
have  had  hope  of  reaching  imperial  ears.  He  speaks  of 
Christianity  as  being  "  made  known  to  governments  and 
authorities  in  heaven-high  positions."  ^^    In  a  later  letter, 


193  "J  wish  you  to  know,  hrethren,  that  my  affairs  have  turned  out 
for  the  advancement  of  the  gospel,  so  that  mj'  bonds  as  a  Christian  are 
manifest  (or,  perhajis,  ' '  my  bonds  bear  testimony  to  my  being  a  Chris- 
tian ")  throughout  the  whole  palace."  —  Philip.  1,  12,  13.  By  the  palace 
must  be  understood  an  aggregate  of  buildings.  The  gardens  seem  to 
have  been  large  enough  (Tacitus,  A71.  15,  44)  for  chariot  racing. 

^^  The  connected  passage  may  aid  the  reader  in  comprehending  subse- 
quent quotations  from  Paul,  for  ■which  reason  it  is  here  given  somewhat 
fully:  "If  you  have  heard  .  .  .  that  by  a  revelation  was  made  known 
to  me  THE  Secret  .  .  .  which  was  not  made  known,  in  former  gener- 
ations, to  the  sons  of  men  as  it  has  now  been  revealed  to  his  [God's] 
consecrated  apostles  and  teachers  by  [a  communication  from]  the  spirit, 
[namely],  that  the  Gentiles  are  fellow  heirs  and  a  conjoint 
BODY  [with  other  Christians]  and  joint  partakers  of  His  promise 
IN  [relation  to  the  sending  of]  Christ,  by  means  of  that  glad-tidings 
whereof  I  became  the  minister.  ...  To  me,  one  of  the  very  lea.st  among 
all  the  consecrated,  this  favor  was  given  that  I  should  carry  the  glad- 
tidings  to  the  Gentiles  .  .  .  and  should  enlighten  all  concerning  the 
working  of  the  Secret,  which  has  been  concealed  since  ages  in  [the 
mind  of]  God  the  Creator  of  all  things,  that  now,  through  the  [Christian] 


§vii.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARKATIVE.   A.  D.  63-70.  249 

written  during  his  second  imprisonment,^^^  liis  tone  is  that 
of  disappointment,  but  his  illustration  corroborates  the 
idea  that  he  had  an  imperial  personage  among  others  in 
mind.  He  speaks  of  women  perpetually  learning,  yet 
never  attaining  a  recognition  of  the  truth,  and  men  who  — 
as  the  Egyptian  magicians  had  prevented  their  monarch 
from  listening  to  Moses  —  prevented  these  from  listening 
to  Paul.1^^6 


assembly  [wliich  I  have  gathered]  God's  diversified  wisdom  [opening 
a  way  to  Gentik^s  as  to  Jews]  might  be  made  known  to  governments  ane\ 
authorities  in  heaven-high  positions."  —  Ephesians,  3,  2-10. 

19^  Paul  during  his  first  imprisonment  must  have  written  Ephesians, 
Colossians,  Philippians,  and  Philemon.  The  epistle  to  Titus  and  the 
first  one  to  Timothy  were  written  during  his  liberation.  The  second 
one  to  Timothy  was  written  after  he  had  been  the  second  time  brought 
to  Kome.  The  phraseology  of  the  letters  to  Timothy  and  Titus  is  so 
similar  as  to  show  that  they  were  written  at  no  great  interval  from  each 
other. 

Paul's  epistles  ought  to  be  rean-anged  in  our  English  translations. 
The  present  arrangement  consists  in  putting  first  those  to  societies  and 
afterwards  those  to  individuals ;  the  arrangement  in  each  class  being 
according  to  size,  without  regard  to  date.  The  epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
not  by  Paul,  has  been  subjoined  to  his  writings  as  doubtful. 

Probably  Paul  was  liberated  from  his  first  imprisonment  early  in  64, 
He  seems  to  have  sailed  for  Asia  Minor  by  the  way  of  Crete,  at  which 
island  he  left  Titus  (Titus  1,  5).  From  Asia  Minor  he  made  a  flying  visit 
to  Philippi  in  Macedonia  (1  Tim.  1,  3 ;  3,  14,  1.")).  From  there  he  must 
have  returned  to  Asia  Minor  and  been  seized  within  its  bounds.  He  waa 
brought  to  Rouie  by  way  of  Miletus  and  Corinth,  for  be  left  Trophiinus 
sick  at  the  former  place,  and  Erastus  stopped  at  the  latter  (2  Tim.  4,  2fi). 
He  had  intended  spending  the  winter  at  Nicopolis  (Titus  3,  12),  and  with 
this  intention  had  left  some  manuscripts  and  a  valise  at  Troas  (2  Tim. 
4,  13),  through  which  place  doubtless  he  expected  to  repass. 

196  "  Know  this,  that  in  the  last  days  times  will  be  difficult.  Men 
will  be  selfish,  avaricious,  ,  ,  .  lovers  of  pleasure  rather  than  of  God ; 
having  an  outside  appearance  of  practical -monotheism,  but  renouncing 
its  [proper]  working.  Avoid  such,  for  of  this  class  are  those  who  make 
their  way  into  families  and  captivate  weak  women  with  accumulated 
faults,  fluctuating  under  various  desires,  perpetually  learning,  but  never 
able  to  reach  a  kecogxition  of  the  truth.  After  the  same  fiishion  that 
11* 


250  JUDAISM   AT  HOME.  [CII.  VIII. 

Although  the  apostle  probably  had  at  Eome,  as  else- 
where, some  trouble  from  Judaizing  Christians,  yet  his 
chief  difhculty,  as  portrayed  in  his  later  letters,  seems  to 
have  been  with  unprincipled  Jews,  who  had,  as  a  con- 
venience to  themselves,  adopted  his  teaching,  that  the 
Mosaic  law  was  not  binding,  but  with  this  diflerence,  that 
he  had  in  view  the  ceremonial,  and  they  the  moral  law. 
They  probably  knew  enough  to  substitute  ceremonial 
observances  for  morality  in  adapting  themselves  to  the 
inclinations  of  the  women  whom  they  wished  to  influ- 
ence. Paul  had  come  into  collision  with  such  Jews, 
nonnnal  adherents  of  Christianity ,^^'^  and  one  who,  during 

Jannes  and  Jambres  [the  Egyptian  magicians]  withstood  Moses,  thus  do 
these  men  withstand  the  truth,  men  corrupt  in  mind,  spurious  as  regards 
the  faith.  But  they  shall  make  no  further  progress,  for  their  sense- 
lessness shall  be  as  thoroughly  manifested  to  all  as  was  that  of  those 
[magicians]."  — 2  Tim.  3,  1-9. 

A  catalogue  of  vices  in  these  men  is  omitted,  that  attention  may  not 
be  diverted  from  their  having  given  a  spurious  adhesion  to  Christianity, 
and  also  from  their  having  apparently  stood  between  Paul  and  the  throne, 
which  Popptea,  for  the  time,  practically  occupied. 

197  "Having  .  .  .  a  good  conscience,  b}'' discarding  which  some  have 
made  shipwreck  of  the  faith,  of  whom  are  Hymen;eus  and  Alexander, 
whom  I  have  delivered  over  to  Satan  [turned  out  of  Christ's  assembly 
into  that  of  Satan,  or  into  heathenism]  that  they  may  be  taught  not  to 
calumniate."  —  1  Tim.  1, 19,  20,  "A  pillar  and  basis  of  the  truth  and 
confessedly  grand  is  the  [little-recognized]  Siccret  of  practical- 
monotheism,  .  .  .  but  the  spirit  expressly  says  that  in  the  last  times 
some  will  fall  away  from  the  faith  [compare  2  Thes.  2,  3,  quoted  on 
p.  236],  adhering  to  deceitful  spirits  and  to  teachings  of  demons  [that 
is,  of  heathenized  men],  hypocritical  falsifier-s,  cauterized  in  their  own 
conscience,  preventing  marriage,  teaching  abstinence  from  meats.  .  .  . 
Eenounce  impure  and  old-womanish  fables.  Exercise  yourself  in  practi- 
cal-monotheism. This  asceticism  is  of  little  use.  Practical-monotheism 
is  useful  in  every  way." — 1  Tim.  3,1.5;  4,  1-3,  7,  8.  "Keep  away 
from  impure  gossips,  for  they  will  make  progress  yet  further  into  hea- 
thenism, and  their  teaching  eats  its  way  like  a  gangrene;  of  whom  are 
Hymenffius  and  Pliiletus,  who  as  regards  the  truth  have  been  a  failure, 
saying  that  'the  resui'rection  is  already  past,'  and  they  upset  the  faitli  of 
some.  Vet  God's  foundation  stands  firm,  liaving  [as  evidence  of  autlien- 
ticity]  this  seal,  '  The  Lord  knows  liis  own,'  and  '  Let  every  one  who  calls 


§vu.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  63-70.  251 

Paul's  trial,  did  him  many  ill  turns,  had  the  same  name, 
and  may  have  been  the  same  person,  as  one  of  those  with 
whom  he  had  previously  come  into  conHict.-^^^ 

If  Paul  had  been  the  only  prominent  Christian  outside 
of  Eonie  who  was  brought  thither,  and  if  none  had 
suffered  elsewhere  as  Christians,  we  might  attribute  his 
second  imprisonment  to  mere  personal  feeling,  whether 
from  Jews  in  the  palace  or  in  Asia,'^^  and  might  have 
regarded  tlie  persecution  of  other  Christians  at  Piome 
as  not  implying,  or  connected  with,  any  effort  of  Jews 
elsewhere  to  make  Christians  responsible  for  the  anti- 
Poman  feeling  which  was  rapidly  gaining  strength.  Ac- 
cording, however,  to  the  concurrent  testimony  of  early 

on  the  Lord's  name  [that  is,  who  professes  to  belong  to  him]  abstain  from 
•wrong-doing."  —  2  Tim.  2,  16-19. 

Paul,  at  a  former  date  (1  Cor.  7,  S,  25-28,  32-34,  38),  had  expressed 
opinions  concerning  the  inexpediency  of  marriage  in  view  of  impending 
troubles.  His  experience  in  Nero's  palace,  or  in  the  city  of  Rome,  would 
seem  to  have  overruled  his  objections,  as  we  may  infer,  not  indeed  froni 
his  indignation  above  expressed,  at  those  who,  dishonestly  as  he  thought, 
opposed  marriage,  but  from  his  statement  1  Tim.  5,  II,  l-l. 

198  "Alexander  the  coppersmith  has  done  me  much  injury  (or,  many 
ill  turns)  .  .  .  agaiust  whom  be  you  also  on  your  guard,  for  he  has  exces- 
sively [or,  vehemently]  coutradicted  my  statements."  —  2  Tim.  4, 14,  lii. 

199  Paul  writes  to  Timothy  (2  Tim.  1, 15),  "You  know  that  all  in 
Asia  [the  small  province  around  Ephesus]  have  turned  away  from  me." 
He  had  just  previously  (2  Tim.  1,  10  —  12)  spoken  of  Christ  as  having 
"done  away  with  death  and  brought  life  and  incorruption  to  light 
through  the  glad-tiilings,  of  which  1  was  made  a  herald,  apostle,  and 
teacher  among  the  Gentiles ;  ox  which  account  also  I  suffer  these 
things."  Shortly  afterwards  he  says  (2  Tim.  2,  8,  9):  "Eemember  Jesus 
Christ,  who  has  been  raised  from  the  dead,  —  a  descendant  of  David,  — 
according  to  my  glad-tidings,  in  whom  I  suffer,  even  to  bonds  as  an 
EVIL-DOER."  The  last  word  makes  it  plain  that  Paul  was  charged  with 
crime.  The  date  of  the  accusation  leaves  little  doubt  that  the  crime 
charged  was  privity  to  setting  the  city  on  fire.  His  statement  as  to  why 
he  had  been  charged  admits  difference  of  interpretation.  It  alleges 
hatred  either  because  of  his  mission  to  the  Gentiles,  or  because  of  his 
advocating  the  resurrection,  concerning  which  latter  he  had  had  trouble 
with  Jews  in  the  palace.  Perhaps  the  Jews  in  Asia  were  promjited  by 
one  motive  and  those  in  the  palace  by  a  different  one. 


252  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  VIII. 

Christian  writers,  Peter  was  also  during  this  persecution 
put  to  death  at  Ptouie,^*^^  a  man  neither  known  nor  likely 
to  have  been  thought  of  there,^^^  unless  sent  as  a  prisoner 
from  his  own  locality.  The  statement,  moreover,  of  James 
the  Less  implies  action  by  Jewish  conservatives  against 
Christians,^^^  and  a  remaining  record  of  his  own  death 
implies  that  he  fell  somewliat  later  a  victim  to  the  same.^^^ 
A  passage  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  treats  the  Christian 
sufferers  of  this  date  as  Jews.^^^     This  would  be  inher- 

20°  Eusebius,  Ecc.  Hist.  2,  25.  Origen,  Comment,  in  Genes.  Tom.  3 
(Opp.  2,  p.  24  B.,  edit,  de  la  Rue;  0pp.  8,  p.  48,  edit.  Lommatzsch). 
Orosius,  8,  7,  p.  473.  Sulpic.  Severus,  Hist.  Sccc.  Lib.  2,  (in  De  la  Bigue, 
Bibliothcca,  Vol.  7,  col.  269  B.) 

2°^  Paul's  previous  experience  illustrates  this.  When  he  for  the  first 
time  reached  Rome  he  found  (Acts  28,  21)  that  even  the  leading  Jews 
had  heard  nothing  concerning  his  difficulties  in  Judaea,  though  these  had 
now  lasted  over  two  years.  How  much  less  likely  were  the  Gentiles  to 
hav-e  known  concerning  Peter  ! 

^^  "Do  not  the  rich  oppress  you  and  drag  you  before  tribunals  ?  Do 
they  not  calumniate  the  excellent  name  by  which  you  are  called  ? "  — 
James  2,  i;,  7. 

^"^  Hegesippus  in  his  fifth  book  gave  a  narrative  concerning  the  death 
of  James,  which  Eusebius  has  copied  into  his  Ecc.  History,  4,  -23,  and 
which  will  be  found  in  Routh,  Rcliquicc  Sacrce,  Vol.  1,  pp.  208-212. 
It  is  disfigured  by  the  weakness  of  its  author,  yet  its  two  prominent 
points  are  not  improbable.  He  states  that  the  conservative  Jew^s  wished 
to  make  use  of  James,  and,  failing  in  this,  put  him  to  death.  This  took 
place  probably  more  than  a  j'ear  after  Nero's  persecution,  during  the 
twelvemonth  when  Judiea  was  handed  over  or  relincpiished  by  the  Roman 
authorities  to  tlie  Jewish  aristocracy. 

*^*  The  Sibylline  writer  says  (5,  149,  1.50)  of  Nero :  — 
"  He  seized  the  God-begotten  temple  and  burnt  [his  fellow]  citizens, 

The  'Peoples,'  who  went  up  into  it,  whom  he  had  justly  praised  with 
hynuis." 

The  full  passage  will  be  found  in  Note  F,  §  II.  No.  1,  of  the  Appendix. 
Nero  must  have  made  Jewish  praise  the  object  of  some  musical  effort  or 
efforts.  On  the  meaning  of  "  Peoples,"  see  Appendix,  Note  B,  §  I.  No.  13. 
Alexandre  substitutes,  conjecturally,  "temple"  for  "Peoples,"  but  Nero 
ceased  to  be  emperor  two  years  before  the  temple's  destruction.  The 
seizure  of  the  temjile  may  refer  to  a  temporary  seizure  at  the  beginning 
of  the  rebellion,  when  tlie  money  in  its  treasury  was  taken  away. 


§vn.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  63-70.  253 

ently  probable  if,  as  in  the  year  52,  leading  Jews  were 
endeavoring  to  saddle  on  this  portion  of  their  countrymen 
the  odium  of  any  feeling  against  the  Eomans,  which  was 
likely  otherwise  to  be  attributed  to  their  whole  body.  The 
only  sufferers  known  to  us  by  name  were  Christian  Jews. 

The  reader  should,  in  tliis  connection,  remember  that 
there  are  constituent  parts  either  in  conservatism,^^^  or  in 
any  other  general  classification  of  mankind,  and  that  the 
personal  character  and  feelings  of  those  in  one  constituent 
part  may  differ  greatly  from  those  in  another.  Among 
those  Jews  who  regarded  Christians  as  fanatics  and  as 
having  caused  expulsion  —  with  its  consequent  loss  and 
inconvenience  —  to  their  non-Christian  brethren  in  A.  D. 
52,  there  were  men  who  must  have  revolted  with  horror 
from  the  present  treatment  of  Christians. 

Seneca  and  other  distinguished  Romans,  almost  imme- 
diately after  the  atrocities  against  Christians,  were  charged 
with  conspiracy  against  Nero.  Poppaea  and  Tigellinus 
were  present  with  Nero  when  the  order  to  Seneca  for  his 
self-destruction  was  sent.^*^^  Popptea's  influence  cannot 
at  most  have  lasted  much  more  than  a  month  afterwards, 
if  we  may  judge  by  the  date  of  Nero's  order  transferring 
Ctesarea  from  Jewish  to  Gentile  control.^^'^ 

Althougli  the  Jewish  rebelHon  did  not  extend  outside 

-°^  I  use  the  terms  "conservatism"  and  "conservatives,"  for  lack  of 
better  ones,  to  designate  all  who,  from  whatever  motives,  see  with  reluc- 
tance, or  oppose  with  greater  or  less  vehemence,  decided  changes  in  soci- 
ety. The  terms  include  wealthy  persons  anxious  for  their  property,  and 
poorer  persons  anxious  for  their  gains.  They  include  tliose  who  adhere, 
either  thoughtfully  or  from  prejudice,  or  as  a  matter  of  personal  feeling, 
to  old  views.  They  include  those  who  rely  more  on  steady  growth  than 
they  do  either  on  noisy  excitements,  or  on  ideas  which  profess  to  revo- 
lutionize ;  those  too  who  have  less  distrust  of  themselves  and  of  others 
in  dealing  with  well-known  evils  than  in  dealing  with  novel  ones.  They 
include  some  of  the  truest-hearted  and  some  of  the  worst  of  men. 

2°^  Tacitus,  Annals,  15,  61. 

'^w  According  to  Josephus  ( Wars,  2,  14,  4),  the  order  had  already  been 
put  in  execution  at  Csesarea  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion  in 
the  month  of  Artemisius.  This  month  seems,  in  the  Asiatic  calendar, 
to  have  begun  about  the  24th  of  March  ;  see  Smith,  Did.  of  Antiq.  p.  225. 


254  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CII.  VIII. 

of  Jewish  borders,  yet  the  prevailing  excitement  chilled, 
or  inil)ittered,  everywhere  the  relations  between  Jews 
and  Gentiles.  This  appears  chiefly  in  the  writings  of 
Christians,  they  being  composed  of  both  parties.  The 
statement  of  Paul  has  been  quoted  (p.  251  n.),  that  all  — 
meaning  doubtless  all  Jewish  Christian.^  —  in  [the  prov- 
ince of]  Asia  had  fallen  away  from  him.  A  passage  of 
the  Apocalypse  written  during  this  rebellion  tells  tb.e 
Christian  assembly  at  Ephesus :  "  You  have  tried  those 
who  call  themselves  apostles,  but  who  are  not,  and  you 
found  them  deceivers." ^^^  A  prominent  Gentile,  on  the 
other  hand,  seems  to  have  eschewed  association  even  with 
an  apostle  of  Jewish  origin.^^^ 

Intensified  Jewish  feeling  makes  itself  visible  in  the 
disposition  of  Jewish  Christians  to  forsake  their  new  for 
their  old  faith,^^''  and  in  a  commendation  by  John  of  hos- 

2™  Apocalypse,  or  Revelation,  2,  2.  The  ultra-Jewish  Christians  at  no 
time  before  or  after  Paul's  death  used  his  writings.  During  his  lifetime 
liis  apostleship  was  denied  by  them,  not  merely  in  Judsea,  but  in  churches 
which  he  himself  had  founded ;  see  1  Cor.  9,  1,  2. 

^°^  The  name  Diotre[ilies,  meaning  "nurtured  by  Jupiter,"  indicates 
that  the  bearer  of  it  was  of  Gentile  origin.  The  apostle  John  says  to 
Gaius :  "  I  wrote  to  the  assembly,  but  Diotrephes,  who  likes  pre-eminence 
over  them,  does  not  receive  us.  Therefore,  if  I  come,  I  will  put  him 
in  mind  of  his  doings,  spreading  evil  reports  about  us.  And  not  content 
with  these  things,  he  does  not  receive  the  brethren  [the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians], and  hinders  and  ejects  from  the  assembl}'  those  who  wish  [to  re- 
ceive them]."  —  3  John,  9,  10.  Diotrephes  probably  feared  to  lose  civil 
or  social  standing  by  fraternizing  with  Jews.  The  praise  given,  in  verse 
12,  to  Demetrius,  also  of  Gentile  origin  if  we  may  judge  from  his  name, 
was  perhaps  because  his  Gentile  surroundings  did  not  prevent  kindliness 
towards  his  brethren  of  Jewish  descent. 

2io  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  written  apparently  after  the  death 
of  Peter  (Heb.  13, 7)  by  some  Alexandrine  Christian,  possibly  by  ApoUos, 
when  the  persecution  at  Rome  was  subsiding  and  when  Timothy  had  been 
set  at  liberty  (Heb.  13,  -IS),  has  for  one  of  its  main  objects  to  prevent 
Jewish  Christians  from  falling  back  into  their  old  faith.  The  same  seems 
to  be  the  object  of  John's  remark  (1  John  2,  23),  "Whoever  denies  the 
Son  hath  not  the  Father;  he  who  confesses  the  Son  hath  the  Father  too." 
Compare  1  John  2,  Hi ;  4,  15;  5,  1,  5,  10,  1-2  ;  2  John  9. 


§vn.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  63-70.  255 

pitality  towards  Gentiles,  which  seems  to  imply  that  for 
the  moment  some  were  averse  to  practising  it.^^^  This 
mutual  alienation  may  well  have  prompted  the  reiterated 
admonitions  of  John  to  mutual  love.^^^ 

The  present,  like  other  reactionary  periods,  filled  Eome 
with  prosecutions  for  Unbelief.^^^ 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

APOCALYPSE,   OR  BOOK   OF   CHRIST'S   SECOND   COMING. 

§  I.    Title  and  AvAhorshiiJ. 

During  or  immediately  after  the  events  narrated  in 
the  last  section  of  the  preceding  chapter,  a  book  called 
the  "Apocalypse"  that  is,  the  "Personal  Ap)pcariny  "  or  the 
"Manifestation"   of  Jesus  Christ}  was  written  by  some 


211  "You  [Gaius]  are  doing  a  true  work  in  what  you  perform  towards 
THE  BRETHREN  and  towards  THE  FOREIGNERS,  wlio  in  presence  of  the 
assembly  have  borne  witness  to  your  kindness ;  whom  you  do  well  to 
assist  on  their  way  in  a  manner  worthy  [a  worshipper]  of  God.  For  on 
account  of  the  name  [of  Christian]  they  came  out,  destitute,  from  among 
the  Gentiles.  We  ought,  therefore,  to  accept  such,  that  we  may  become 
fellow-workers  [with  them]  in  the  truth."  —  3  John  5-8.  In  this  and 
in  the  immediately  following  verses  (9,  10),  which  have  already  been 
quoted,  "brethren"  seems  to  mean  such  travelling  Christians  as  were 
Jews,  and  "foreigners"  such  as  were  Gentiles.  The  latter  word,  ^eVot, 
was  used  by  Jews  to  designate  Gentiles  (Ephes.  2,  12,  19 ;  Matt.  27,  T), 
and  may  have  been  retained  sometimes  by  those  of  them  who  became 
Christians.  Its  retention  was  most  likely  on  the  part  of  Christians  who 
associated  much  with  Jews. 

212  See  1  John  2,!i-]l ;  3,  11, 14, 15,  23;  4,  7,  8,  20,  21;  2  John  5.  Com- 
pare James  1,  10,  20. 

213  «i  Vespasian  .  .  .  sent  [letters]  to  Eome  to  wipe  out  any  stigma 
from  the  living  or  dead,  who  under  Nero  and  his  successors  [Galba,  Otho, 
and  Vitellius]  had  been  condemned  for  Unbelief,  and  quashing  all  such 
accusations."  —  Dio  Cass.  66,  n. 

1  The  common  version  "Revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,"  in  order  that  it 


256  JUDAISM  AT   KOME.  [CH.  IX. 

Jewish  Christian  named  John.  It  throws  light  both  on 
the  persecution  by  Jewish  conservatives  and  on  the  in- 
tensity of  anti-Eoman  feeling  among  the  ultra-Judaizing 
Christians,  and  seems  to  call  for  a  special  chapter. 

In  the  SECOND  century,  Justin  and  Ireneeus,  semi-Jewish 
Christians,  wlio  could  find  their  favorite  doctrines  of  a 
Millennium  and  a  New  Jerusalem  nowhere  in  the  Christian 
records  save  in  this  book,  allege  or  assume  unhesitatingly 
that  it  was  written  by  the  apostle  John.  Other  brethren 
in  that  century,  less  tinctured  with  Jewish  views,  attrib- 
ute it  to  a  different  author.^  This  discrepance  in  the  sec- 
ond century  could  scarcely  have  existed  had  the  apostle 
been  its  writer.  If  any  reliance  can  be  placed  on  style, 
the  work  was  not  written  by  the  same  person  as  the  gos- 
pel and  epistles  of  John.2^  If  any  reliance  can  be  placed 
on  views  taught,  it  was  not  from  that  apostle  who  gave 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  Paul,  that  he  should  go  to 
the  Gentiles.^     The  book,  aside  from  the  passage  already 

may  correspond  with  the  Greek,  must  be  understood  as  meaning,  not  a 
revelation  made  by  him,  but  a  revealing  of  himself  personally,  as  in 
1  Cor.  1,  7 ;  2  Thes.  1,  7 ;  1  Pet.  1,  7,  13 ;  4, 13.  Compare  Llike  17,  30,  and 
also  tlie  revealing  (2  Thes.  2,  3,  fi,  8)  of  the  Lawless  One. 

-  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  who  flourished  in  the  first  half  of  the 
third  century  and  who  was  born  about  its  commencement,  says:  "Some 
OF  OUR  PKEDECESSOiis  rejected  and  totally  discarded  the  book  .  .  .  they 
say  that  it  is  not  from  John.  ...  I  will  not  deny  that  he  [the  writer] 
was  called  John,  and  that  this  writing  is  from  a  John,  .  .  .  yet  I  would 
not  readily  concede  that  he  was  the  apostle.  .  .  .  But  I  think  that  he 
was  some  other  John,  [one]  of  those  who  lived  in  Asia,  since  they  say 
that  there  are  two  monuments  at  Ephesus,  and  each  is  said  to  be  John's." 
—  Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  7,  2.%  Vol.  2,  ])p.  374,  376,  378,  379,  edit.  Heinichen. 
Cuius,  an  earlier  writer  than  Dionysius,  may  be  one  of  those  meant  ;  he 
denied  apostolic  authorship  (Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  3,  28)  to  the  book. 

■•'"  Tomparethe  Evangelist's  style  in  Ch.  XII.  §  2  oi  Indirect  Testimony. 

^  "James,  Cephas,  and  John  .  .  .  gave  to  me  and  Barnabas  their  right 
hands  in  fellowship,  that  we  should  go  to  the  Gentiles."  —  Galat.  2,  it. 
Tbis  agrees  with  the  views  of  John,  as  stated  in  his  gospel  (1,  12,  1.3), 
that  the  Logos  gave  "the  right  of  becoming  God's  children  to  those  .  .  . 
who  were  born  not  of  [particular]  races,  [or,  more  literally,  'bloods'] 
.  .   .  but  of  God."     It  agrees  also  with  his  commendation  of  Gaius,  be- 


§  I.]  APOCALYPSE.  257 

quoted,  which  bears  strong  appearance  of  condemning 
I'aul,^  is  obviously  Jewish  in  its  teachings,  and  its  man- 
ifestation of  feeling  towards  Rome  is  fearful. 

Attention  to  tlie  geographical  field  of  Paul's  labors 
corroborates  the  view  that  a  native,  or  lifelong  inliabi- 
tant,  of  western  Asia  Minor  wrote  the  book.  Asia  Minor 
was  subdivided  into  smaller  districts.  One  of  these,  called 
"  Asia,"  lay  in  a  semicircle  around  Ephesus,  extending, 
approximately,  for  a  hundred  niiles.^  Paul,  in  his  earlier 
missionary  journeys,  traversed  the  adjoining  countries, 
but  made  no  effort  in  this  section,^  whence  we  may  infer 
that  Jewish  feeling  there,  as  in  Judaea,  barred  the  way  for 
his  teachings.  Afterwards  he  made  an  effort  in  Ephesus, 
but  was  obliged  to  form,  in  the  school  of  a  Gentile,  an 
organization  which  must  have  been  separate  from  that  of 
more  Jewish  Christians.''  Somewhat  later,  he  writes :  "  I 
sliall  remain  in  Ephesus  until  Pentecost,  for  a  great  and 
practicable  doorway  is  open,  althougli  there  are  many 
opponents."^  After  the  fire  in  Pome,  his  statement,  "You 
know  that  all  in  Asia  have  turned  away  from  me,"^  refers, 

cause  of  his  hospitality  to  Gentiles,  as  quoted  in  note  211  of  the  preceding 
clia])ter. 

Tlie  fact  that  the  apostle  John  was  one  of  the  three  who  sustained  more 
intimate  relations  than  other  disciples  with  Jesus  is  additional  evidence 
of  his  enlarged  views.  This  and  the  direct  testimony  of  Paul  seem  to 
have  heen  overlooked  by  those  who  attribute  the  Apocalypse  to  the  apos- 
tle, but  the  gospel  to  a  different  John. 

*  See  Kev.  2,  2,  quoted  on  p.  254. 

^  Asia,  according  to  the  above  limitation,  had  been  bequeathed  to  the 
Eoraans  by  Attains,  in  b.  c.  133  (.Smith,  Diet,  of  Geog.  Vol.  1,  p.  238, 
col.  2).  The  Romans,  when  appointing  a  governor,  included  neighbor- 
ing provinces  under  the  term  "Asia,"  but  the  inhabitants  of  Asia  ilinor 
seem  to  have  retained  the  name  as  a  designation  for  the  original  fragment 
of  territory.  See  Acts  of  the  Apostles  2,  9,  10;  16,  G,  7;  Rev.  1,  4  ;  and 
compare  Acts  19,  10,  22,  26. 

^  Acts  16,  1,  (J.  "  Acts  19,  9  ;  compare  remarks  on  p.  240. 

*  1  Cor.  16,  s,  i).  Some  doings  of  these  opponents  may  be  seen  in 
Acts  21,  27,  and  their  influence  in  2  Tim.  1,  15. 

^  2  Tim.  1,  1.5.  Timothy,  to  whom  this  was  addressed,  would  know 
its  meaning.     He  knew  that  prevalent  feeling  in  Asia  might  excite  Jews 


258  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  IX. 

doubtless,  to  sucli  Christians  of  Jewish  proclivities,  in 
this  section  of  Asia  Minor,  as  had  formerly  adliered  to 
him. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  Apocalypse  we  find  it  addressed 
to  seven  churches  in  this  most  Judaizing  fraction  of  Asia 
Minor,  all  of  them  within  eighty  miles  of  Ephesus.  The 
field  of  Paul's  labors  is  totally  ignored,  except  in  tlie  ad- 
dress to  the  Epliesians,  which  may  well  have  been  sym- 
pathy for  their  rejection  of  him.  Not  only  this,  but  the 
churches  of  Judaea  and  Syria  are  ignored.  The  apostle 
John  had,  prior  to  the  date  of  this  book,  labored  almost 
exclusively  in  Judsea  or  its  neighborhood.  Had  he  origi- 
nated the  book,  he  could  not  have  overlooked  the  field 
of  his  own  labors,  and  forborne  a  word  of  counsel  to  it. 
Only  by  supposing  that  the  writer  was  a  Judaizing  Chris- 
tian, native  of,  or  long  resident  in,  this  little  precinct  of 
Asia  Minor,  can  we  naturally  account  for  his  ignoring  the 
remainder  of  the  Christian  world.  The  objections  against 
deeming  the  book  a  work  of  John  the  apostle  weigh  with 
still  greater  force  against  the  supposition  that  it  is  a  com- 
munication from  Jesus. 

§  II.    Date. 

The  book  was  written  under  the  sixth  Eoman  emperor,^*' 
which,  as  the  writer  lived  in  Asia,  must  mean  Vespasian. 
This  accords  with  the  mention  of  a  seventh,  —  Titus, 
doubtless,  —  who  was  yet  to  come.^^  It  alludes  to  Nero's 
death,^^  and  seems  to  imply  destruction  of  the  temple. ^2" 

and  their  sympathizers  against  Paul,  but  this  would  have  made  Chris- 
tians of  Gentile  proclivities  defend  him.  Paul's  admonitions  to  Timothy 
(2  Tim.  4,  ],  2)  imply  that  his  views  still  found  hearers.  These  must  have 
been  mainly  Gentiles. 

1"  Eev.  17,  10.     Compare  Appendix,  Note  E. 

11  Titus  had  (see  p.  272,  note  5)  been  proclaimed  emperor  against  his 
father,  and  had  put  on  a  crown,  but  gave  up  perhaps  such  claim  for  (see 
p.  271 ,  note  4)  a  share  in,  or  future  promise  of,  the  empire. 

12  Rev.  17,  11 . 

12a  Titus  as  coming  emperor  may  imply  that  the  temple  was  already 
destroyed.     The  new  Jerusalem  (Rev.  21,  il)  is  without  temple. 


§  III.]  APOCALYPSE.  259 

It  must,  therefore,  have  heen  completed  after  A.  D.  G8,  and 
probably  in,  or  soon  after,  A.  D.  70.  The  first  half  of  the 
book,  concerning  persecution  of  Christians  by  conserva- 
tive Jews,  may  have  been  composed  even  earlier  by  a 
year  or  two. 

§  III.     Divisions  and  Object. 

The  book,  aside  from  some  introductory  and  concluding 
remarks  (1,  1-8;  22,  6- 2l),  contains :  1.  Admonitions  to 
endurance  and  steadfastness  ;  2.  A  figurative  explanation 
of  how  Jewish  opposition  was  to  be  subdued ;  3.  A  figu- 
rative explanation  of  how  heathen  opposition  was  to  be 
subdued  and  punished.  The  first  of  these  includes  from 
chapter  1,  9,  to  tlie  end  of  chapter  3;  the  second,  chapters 
4  to  11 ;  and  the  third,  from  chapter  12  to  22,  5. 

In  order  to  appreciate  tlie  author's  object  we  must 
recollect  that  not  only  among  heathens,  but  also  among 
Jews  and  Christians,  an  erroneous  belief  prevailed  that 
divine  favorites  might  expect  divine  interposition  in  their 
behalf.  The  Jews  looked  for  it  at  tlieir  Messiah's  coming. 
The  Christians,  not  having  experienced  it,  supposed  that 
it  was  deferred  until  a  second  coming  of  their  JMaster. 
Some  Jews  or  Christians  had,  apparently,  begun  to  lose 
patience,  and  irreverently  to  ask,  "  Where  is  his  prom- 
ised coming,  for,  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things 
remain  in  the  same  condition  as  since  the  creation."  ^^ 
To  meet  this  state  of  feeling  the  writer  repeats  and  re- 
iterates the  statement  that  the  coming  would  be  quickly ,i* 
and,  to  emphasize  this  assertion,  an  angel,  of  sucli  gigan- 
tic proportions  that  he  stands  with  one  foot  on  the  land 
and  the  other  on  the  sea,  is  represented  as  lifting  his  hand 
to  heaven  and  taking  an  oath  by  the  Supreme  Being,  and 
by  the  heaven,  the  eartli,  the  sea,  and  everything  in  them, 
that  when  a  trumpet  —  briefly  delayed  —  should  sound, 
there  should  no  longer  be  any  delay,  but  God's  secret 
purpose  should  be  accomplished  according  to  the  glad 
announcement  which  he  had  made  to  the  prophets.^^ 

13  2  Peter,  3,  4. 

"  "I  am  coming  quickly."  — 2,  16;  3,  11;  22,  7,  12,  20.  "The  time 
is  near." — 22,  10. 

15  Kev.  10,  5-7.     The  passage  imitates  Daniel  12,  7. 


260 


JUDAISM  AT  ROME. 


[CH.  IX. 


§  IV,     Phraseology  and  Illustrations. 

The  phraseology"  of  the  book  is  largely  borrowed  from 
the  Old  Testament.  Two  passages  are  placed  in  the  note 
as  an  example.^*^  In  some  instances  a  recurrence  to  the 
Old  Testament  becomes  requisite  before  the  origin  of  a 
figure  can  be  discerned.  Thus,  in  Daniel  7,  9,  the  Deity 
is  styled  the  "  Ancient  of  Days,"  and  in  accordance  with 
this  conception  is  represented  as  having  hair  perfectly 
white.  The  parallel  passage,  Eev.  1,-14,  uses  the  descrip- 
tion for  the  Son  of  Man.  Compare,  in  the  Appendix, 
Note  D,  foot-note  8. 

The  habiliments  of  a  heavenly  personage  are  copied 


16  "Being  turned,  I  saw  seven 
golden  candlesticks;  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  seven  candlesticks  one 
like  unto  the  Son  of  man,  clothed 
with  a  garment  down  to  the  foot, 
and  girt  about  with  a  golden  girdle. 
His  head  and  his  hairs  were  white 
like  wool,  as  white  as  snow ;  and  his 
eyes  were  as  a  flame  of  fire ;  and  his 
feet  like  unto  fine  brass,  as  if  they 
burned  in  a  furnace ;  and  his  voice 
as  the  sound  of  many  waters.  And 
he  had  in  his  right  hand  seven  stars  ; 
and  out  of  his  mouth  went  a  sharp 
two-edged  sword ;  and  his  counte- 
nance was  as  the  sun  shineth  in  his 
strength.  And  when  I  saw  him,  I 
fell  at  his  feet  as  dead,  and  he  laid 
his  right  hand  on  me  saying.  Fear 
not."  —  Rev.  1,  12-17. 


"There  was  a  great  earthquake; 
and  the  sun  became  black  as  sack- 
cloth, and  the  moon  became  as 
blood ;  and  the  stars  of  the  heaven 
fell  unto  the  earth,  even  as  a  fig-tree 


"I  said,  behold  a  candlestick  all 
of  gold,  .  .  .  and  his  seven  lamps 
thereon."  —  Zech.  4,  2. 

"  I  saw  .  .  .  one  like  the  Son  of 
man."  — Dan.  7,  l.'.. 

"  Behold  a  certain  man  clothed  in 
linen,  .  .  .  girded  with  fine  gold  of 
Uphaz."  — Dan.  10,  .•>. 

"The  Ancient  of  Days  did  sit, 
whose  garment  was  white  as  snow 
and  the  hair  of  his  head  like  the 
pure  wool."  —  Dan.  7,  n. 

"And  his  eyes  as  lamps  of  fire, 
and  his  arms  and  his  feet  like  in 
color  to  polished  brass."  ^  Dan. 
10,  6. 

"  He  made  my  mouth  like  a  sharp 
sword."  — Is.  49,  2. 

"His  voice  was  like  a  noise  of 
many  waters."  —  Ezek.  43,  2. 

"And  he  said  unto  me,  .  .  .  Fear 
not,  Daniel."  —  Dan.  10,  11,  12. 

"There  shall  be  a  great  shaking 
in  the  land  of  Israel  .  .  .  and  the 
mountains  shall  be  thrown  down." 
—  Ezek.  38,  in,  20. 

"The   earth    shall   (piake  before 


§v.] 


APOCALYPSE. 


261 


apparently  from  those  of  the  high-priest.^^  The  period, 
more  than  once  mentioned,  of  three  years  and  a  half,  is 
based  on  a  similar  expression  in  Daniel.^^ 

§  V.     Outline  of  the  Book. 

John  represents  that  he  was  in  the  isle  of  Patmos, 
because  of  his  Christianity ;  meaning,  apparently,  either 


casteth  her  untimely  figs,  when  .she 
is  sliaken  by  a  mighty  wind.  And 
the  heaven  departed  as  a  scroll  when 
it  is  rolled  together;  and  every 
mountain  and  island  were  moved 
out  of  their  places."  —  Rev.  6, 
12  - 14. 


them  [an  army  of  locusts],  the 
heaven  shall  tremble,  the  sun  and 
moon  shall  be  dark,  and  the  stars 
shall  withdraw  their  shining."  — 
Joel  2,  10;  cp.  3,  l.i. 

"The  sun  shall  be  turned  into 
darkness  and  the  moon  into  blood." 
—  Joel  2,  31. 

"  The  stars  of  heaven  and  the 
constellations  thereof  shall  not  give 
their  light,  the  sun  shall  be  dark- 
ened in  his  going  forth,  and  the 
moon  shall  not  cause  her  light  to 
shine."  —  Is.  13,  lo. 

"The  heavens  shall  be  rolled  to- 
gether as  a  scroll,  and  all  their  liost 
shall  fall  down  as  the  leaf  falleth 
from  the  vine  and  as  a  falling  fig 
from  the  fig-tree." —  Is.  34,  4. 
"  Compare  Josephus,  Antiq.  3,  7,  4,  with  Daniel,  10,  ",  and  Kev.  1, 13. 
In  later  times  the  Catholics  represented  the  Deity  in  the  Pope's  habili- 
ments and  tiara  ;  see  in  Iconographie  Chretienne  by  Didron,  the  Histoire 
de  Dicu,  p.  224,  where  a  copy  of  the  representation  is  given. 

^^  The  lunar  year  contained  sometimes  twelve  and  sometimes  thirteen 
months.  Allowing  in  Daniel's  time,  by  a  moderate  inaccuracy,  thirty 
days  to  a  month,  there  would  in  three  and  a  half  years  be  either  1,260 
or  1,290  days,  accordingly  as  an  intercalary  month  was  or  was  not  in- 
cluded in  the  reckoning.  Forty-two  months,  or  one  time,  two  times, 
and  half  a  time,  or  three  days  and  a  half,  seem  to  be  different  expres- 
sions for  three  years  and  a  half.  Compare  Rev.  11,  •?,  .3,  9,  11 ;  12,  (i,  14; 
13,  5;  and  Daniel  7,  2.5;  12,  7,  11.  The  time  during  which,  under 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,  the  temple  sacrifice  was  intermitted,  was  regarded 
as  three  and  a  half  years ;  see  Daniel  12,  11. 


262  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  IX. 

that  he  had  been  banished  or  had  fled  thither.  Spirit- 
ually he  found  himself  in  the  "  Day  of  the  Lord."  ^^  The 
tenor  of  the  book  requires  us  to  understand  by  this  the 
day  of  the  Lord's  coming.^'^  A  voice  behind  him,  pow- 
erful as  a  trumpet,  directs  him  to  write  certain  admo- 
nitions to  the  seven  churches.  Turning,  he  sees  Jesus, 
who  specifies  what  he  should  write  to  each.  These  spe- 
cifications (cc.  2,  3)  afford  ground  for  probable  conjecture 
on  some  historical  points.^^ 

19  Rev.  1, 10. 

2'^  Origen  uses  the  same  term  in  the  sense  above  given.  He  says: 
"The  whole  house  of  Israel  shall  be  raised  in  the  great  KvpiaKy,  Day  of 
the  Lord,  death  having  been  conquered."  —  Origen,  in  Joan.  10,  -K); 
0pp.  4,  p.  197,  B,  edit,  de  la  Rue;  1,  p.  345,  edit.  Lommatzsch. 

■■^1  Laodicea  is  told  (Rev.  3,  14-18)  that  she  thinks  herself  rich,  but  is 
in  reality  poor.  Tacitus  says  (^An.  14,  27),  that  Laodicea,  when  thrown 
down  by  an  earthquake  in  the  year  60,  regained  its  position  without 
Roman  aid,  by  its  own  resources.  Paul  speaks  (Coloss.  2,  1)  of  Laodicea 
as  one  of  the  places  where  he  had  not  been.  Wealthy  and  conservative 
Judaism  may  have  rendered  it  an  unpromising  field  for  him,  and  may, 
when  the  Apocalypse  was  written,  have  seemed  to  its  author  lukewarm 
or  worldly.  With  him  true  Judaism  and  Christianity  were  synony- 
mous. 

Near  Laodicea,  on  tlie  same  stream,  was  Hierapolis,  where  Philip  in 
the  year  52  had  been  martyred  by  Jews  and  heathens  conjointly.  So  far 
as  Paul's  journeys  are  recorded,  it  also  had  not  been  visited  by  him.  It 
is  not  enumerated  among  the  seven  [chief?]  churches  by  the  author  of 
the  Apocalypse,  and  although  there  were  some  Christians  there  (Coloss. 
4,  13)  when  Paul  wrote,  between  A.  D.  62  and  64,  to  the  Colossians,  ye» 
the  field  had  not  probably  been  a  fruitful  one. 

The  Nicolaitans  at  Ephesus  —  named,  possibly,  after  some  prominent 
member  —  may  have  been  the  society  of  Gentiles,  with  an  admixture  of 
liberal  Jews,  which  Paul  founded  there  (Acts  19,  9,  lo).  They  had 
probably  diseardc^d  the  Sabbath  (see  p.  240),  and  from  Paul's  remark  to 
Timotliy  (2  Tim.  1,  15),  cited  on  pp.  257,  258  (compare  Acts  21,  27),  —a 
remark  written  after  a  renewed  eflbrt  at  Ephesus  (1  Tim.  1,  3;  3,  14),  — it 
is  probable  enougli  that  his  society  shared  the  disfavor  into  which  he  had 
himself  fallen.  Whether  they  fraternized  in  a  culpable  manner  with  the 
heathens,  or  whether  they  merely  appeared  culpable  in  the  eyes  of  their 
Jewish  brethren,  may  be  a  question.  The  Christians  at  Pergamus  are 
represented  as  dwelling  in  the  seat  of  Satan,  that  is,  of  heathenism,  and 


§  v.]  APOCALYPSE.  263 

After  the  admonitions,  John  represents  himself  as  sum- 
moned to  heaven  (ch.  4),  and  that  he  spiritually  went 
there.^^  At  the  right  hand  of  the  Su^jreme  Being  was  a 
book  (ch.  5),  the  book,  as  it  would  seem,  of  the  Divine 
purposes.  No  one  in  heaven,  nor  on  the  earth,  nor  un- 
der the  earth,  save  Jesus,  proved  worthy  to  open  this 
book.^^ 

By  a  book  we  must  understand  as  in  ancient  times  a 
scroll.  This  one  would  seem  already  full,  for  it  is  written 
not  only  on  the  inner  side,  as  usual,  but  also  on  the  outer. 
It  is  a  sealed  book  until  Jesus  opens  it.  Jewish  partiality 
for  the  number  seven  appears  in  the  list  of  seals  which 
fasten  it.  In  cliapter  6,  seal  after  seal  is  broken,  and  with 
eacli  consecutive  seal  an  additional  portion  of  the  book  is 
unfolded,  giving  further  insight  into  God's  purposes.  The 
breaking  of  the  first  four  seals  brings  to  view  a  white 
horse,  emblematic  of  triumph  to  the  Son  of  Man;  a  red, 
a  black,  and  a  pale  horse,  emblematic  of  war,  famine,  and 

some  of  them  as  eating  idol  sacrifices.  In  tliis  respect  they  are  said  to 
resemble  the  Nicolaitans  (Rev.  2,13-15).  Probably  if  a  Christian  had 
seated  himself  at  the  table  of  his  yet  heathen  brother,  sister,  or  friend, 
knowing  that  idol  meat  stood  thereon,  he  would  have  been  blamed. 
Paul's  directions  for  a  similar  state  of  things  (1  Cor.  8,  4-1:5;  10,  19-3-J) 
imply  narrowness  on  one  side  and  thoughtless,  or  else  unconscientious, 
laxity  on  the  other.  The  excitement  of  the  years  64  -  70  was  likely  to 
reproduce  or  exaggerate  either  tendency. 

The  Christians  at  Smyrna  seem  to  have  been  poor  (Rev.  2,  ft),  and  the 
non-Christian  Jews  of  that  place  were  probably  on  good  terms  with,  or 
else  sought  the  favor  of,  heathens,  for  they  are  said  to  belong  to  "  Satan's 
synagogue." 

The  allusion  to  but  a  single  martyr  (Rev.  2,  13)  in  the  seven  churches 
renders  it  probable  that  estrangement  and  embitterment  had  not  in  Asia 
Minor  produced  much  bloodshed. 

^■■^  The  surroundings  and  attendance  on  the  Supreme  Being,  as  described 
in  ch.  4,  are  borrowed  from  Ezekiel  1,  5-24;  Isaiah  6,  2,  3;  Exodus  28, 
17-20.  The  attendant  creatures  are  so  provided  with  eyes  in  every  direc- 
tion —  and  in  Ezekiel  with  wheels  —  that  they  need  not  even  turn  around 
before  starting  on  their  errands;  see  Ezekiel  1,  12. 

"^^  Jesus  is  designated  by  two  opposite  figures,  as  "the  lamb  that  was 
slaughtered"  (5,  6)  and  as  "the  lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah"  (5,  .'j). 


264  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  IX. 

pestilence,  or  destruction  generally,  for  his  enemies.^*  The 
fifth  seal  displays  the  martyrs  clamorous  for  vengeance, 
who  are  told  to  wait  yet  a  little.  The  sixth  unfolds  con- 
vulsions of  nature  before  which  mortals  hide  themselves 
in  terror,  and  when  —  after  security  provided  (ch.  7)  for 
the  Jewish  saints ^^  —  the  seventh  seal  is  opened  (ch.  8) 
the  inhabitants  of  heaven  stand  silent,  awe-struck  appar- 
ently, for  half  an  hour. 

After  tliis,  either  as  a  means  of  carrying  out  the  un- 
expressed horrors  unveiled  by  breaking  the  seventh  seal, 
or  else  independently  of  it,  seven  angels  consecutively 
blow  a  trumpet.  The  plagues  which  follow  these  blasts 
are  borrowed  from  the  Old  Testament,  being  mainly, 
though  not  wholly,  those  recorded  as  inflicted  on  the 
Egyptians.^^     There  is,  however,  a  noteworthy  difference 

2*  The  emblematic  import  of  each  horse  is  sufficiently  explained  in  the 
context  of  its  appearance.  The  price  of  grain  during  the  famine  (ch.  6,  6) 
is  copied  from  2  Kings  7,  1,  but  with  a  seeming  inadvertence.  The  Book 
of  Kings  represents  Elisha  as  predicting  to  the  beleaguered  and  famished 
city,  where  a  woman  had  even  eaten  her  child,  the  plenty  which  actually 
came  when  the  invaders  fled  from  their  well-filled  camp.  The  direc- 
tion that  no  injury  be  done  to  wine  or  oil  may  have  been  owing  to  the 
prominent  use  uf  these  articles,  at  least  by  the  poorer  classes,  in  temple 
offerings. 

2^  Those  who  are  guarded  by  a  seal  against  harm  are  twelve  thousand 
from  each  of  the  twelve  original  tribes  of  Israel. 

26  The  hail  and  fire  (that  is,  lightning)  in  ch.  8,  7;  16,  21,  is  borrowed 
from  Exodus  9,  23.  The  changing  of  the  sea  into  blood,  ch.  8,  8;  16, 
3,  4,  is  taken  from  Exodus  7,  20,  21.  The  darkening  of  sun,  moon,  and 
stars,  ch.  8,  12 ;  16,  10,  is  based  on  Exodus  10,  22.  The  bitter  waters, 
ch.  8,  11,  are  suggested  by  Exodus  15,  23 -,36.  The  account  of  locusts, 
ch.  9,  3-12,  though  having  a  basis  in  Exodus  10,  12-1.'),  is  filled  out 
apparently  from  Joel,  ch.  2.  The  ulcers,  ch.  16,  2,  are  taken  from  Exo- 
dus 9,  10,  11. 

In  ch.  9,  14-17,  armies,  of  Parthians  doubtless  and  Medes,  are  let 
loose  at  the  Euphrates,  to  scourge  the  persecuting  Jews;  and  in  ch. 
16,  12,  where  heathen  opposition  is  dealt  with,  an  angel  dries  up  the 
river  so  as  to  facilitate  a  passage  for  these  "kings  from  the  East."  They 
had  proved  so  troublesome  as  to  suggest  themselves  readily  as  a  scourge 
either  for  the  Jews  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  or  for  the  Romans  who  had 
been  unable  to  conquer  them. 


§  v.]  APOCALYPSE.  265 

between  their  reproduction  in  this,  and  in  the  latter,  por- 
tion of  the  book.  Here  the  autlior  is  dealing  with  Jewish 
opposition.  All  the  plagues  fall,  therefore,  in  a  mitigated 
form.  Only  a  third  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  is  dark- 
ened, only  a  third  of  the  sea  becomes  blood,  only  a  third 
of  the  grass  and  trees  are  destroyed,  and  only  a  third  of 
the  springs  become  bitter.  When  we  come  to  the  over- 
throw of  heathen  opposition,  we  shall  find  that  heathens 
get  the  plagues  without  mitigation.  It  is  the  sea,  not 
merely  a  third  of  it,  which  is  changed  into  blood,  and  so 
with  the  remaining  inflictions.  In  the  present  portion  a 
tenth  merely  of  Jerusalem  falls  down  (ch.  11,  13),  and  the 
rest  is  converted.  But  in  dealing  with  heathenism  an 
angel  casts  a  millstone  into  the  sea  (ch.  18,  21),  exclaim- 
ing, Babylon  (the  title  given  by  the  book  to  Eome)  shall 
go  down  like  that,  and  the  sound  of  a  harper  shall  not  be 
heard  in  her  again. 

Before  concluding  the  suppression  of  Jewish  opposition 
and  prior  to  the  seventh  trumpet,  John  takes  from  the 
angel,  who  has  just  asseverated  the  absence  of  any  further 
delay,  a  small  book,  an  account  perhaps  of  what  was 
about  to  transpire.  By  direction  he  eats  it,  and  finds,  as 
the  angel  had  foretold  to  him,  that,  though  sweet  to  the 
taste,  it  was  bitter  of  digestion. 

The  suppression  of  Jewish  opposition  being  effected, 
the  writer  proceeds,  in  chapter  12,  to  that  of  heathenism. 

The  true  people  of  God,  that  is,  the  faithful  portion  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  is  represented,  according  to  a  figure 
borrowed  from  the  Old  Testament,  as  a  woman.^^  She 
gives  birth  to  the  INIessiah.  Heathenism,  identified  with 
Satan,  is  represented  as  a  serpent  eager  to  devour  the 
child.  The  latter  is  caught  up  to  God,  and  the  woman 
seeks  refuge  in  the  wilderness.     The  serpent  pours  after 

^  In  Isaiah,  50,  l,  the  former  Jewish  people  is  represented  as  the  wife 
of  Jehovah  whom  he  had  dismissed  because  of  her  transgressions.  In 
Ezekiel,  ch.  16,  God  is  further  represented  as  having  brought  her  up  from 
infancy  and  married  her.  The  details  of  the  figure  there  given  imply 
utter  coarseness  and  grossness  in  any  community  to  whom  they  can  have 
been  addressed. 


266  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  IX. 

lier  floods  of  water,  a  common  Jewish  figure  for  afflictions, 
which  the  earth  in  her  behalf  drinks  up. 

The  serpent  in  his  rage  makes  war  against  the  remain- 
der of  her  children.  His  chief  agent  in  this  is  a  beast 
(ch.  13),  the  Roman  power.  The  rising  of  tlie  beast  from 
the  sea,  and  some  of  the  language  concerning  it,  is  bor- 
rowed from  Daniel.^^  This  tirst-portrayed  beast  (ch.  13, 
1  - 10)  is  the  Eoman  power.  One  of  its  heads,  Nero,  is  rep- 
resented as  slaughtered,  but  the  deadly  wound  is  healed.^^ 
It  came  into  Asia  from  across  the  sea.  A  second  beast  ap- 
pears rising  from  the  land  (ch.  13,  1 1) ;  that  is,  originating 
among  themselves.  It  is  portrayed  as  a  subordinate  agent 
of  Itome's  power,  and  probably  represents  Gentile  Chris- 
tianity, by  which  must  be  understood  not  merely  Paul's 
teaching,  but  that  of  others  with  whom  he  might  have 
had  but  limited  or  no  sympathy .^^'  To  an  ultra-Jewish 
Christian  this  Gentile  Christianity  seemed  but  another 
form  of  heathenism.^*'  Its  inculcation  of  obedience  to 
Rome  (ch.  13,  12)  did  not,  in  a  season  of  war,  diminish 
the  odium  against  it.  Some  Gentile  Christians  may  have 
vaunted,  rather  than  appreciated,  Paul's  miracles  (Acts 
19,11-17),  and  the  writer  represents  that  this  second 
beast  "deceives  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  through  the 


28  Daniel?,  2-27. 

29  See  Appendix,  Note  F.  29a  Cp.  note  209  of  Ch.  VIII. 

8°  "  This  second  bea.st  had  the  horns  of  a  lamb  and  the  talk  of  a  ser- 
pent "  ;  that  is,  it  put  on  the  guise  of  monotheism,  but  its  teaching  was 
heathenish.  It  reappears  (ch.  16, 13 ;  19,  20 ;  20, 10)  as  the  false  prophet, 
or  teacher.  This  view  of  Gentile  Christianity  by  the  writer  should  be 
compared  with  two  paragraphs  of  Ch.  VIII.  on  pp.  254,  255. 

The  second  beast  is  by  some  leading  commentators  deemed  an  emblem 
of  Rome's  superstition.  But  Rome's  superstition  did  not  originate  in 
Asia.  Its  professions,  or  outer  appearance,  would,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Jew- 
ish Christian,  have  been  the  opposite  of  lamb-like  or  innocent.  To  it  he 
would  not  have  applied  in  any  sense  the  term  "prophet,"  since  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  public  teaching,  or  teachers,  in  the  name  of  the  heathen 
religion  ;  nor  in  that  age  do  Jews,  or  Christians,  seem  to  have  applied  the 
tenn,  save  to  a  professed  teacher  of  monotheism.  Miracles,  moreover, 
were  not  performed  in  the  name  of  the  heathen  religion. 


§  v.]  APOCALYPSE.  267 

miracles  which  it  is  permitted  to  perform  in  the  presence 
of  the  [first]  beast,"  that  is,  in  the  presence  of  heathenism. 
The  chief  beast  is  designated  by  a  number,  of  which  a 
probable  explanation  is  one  of  those  given  in  the  note.^^ 

A  subsequent  passage,  where  this  beast  is  mentioned 
conjointly  witli  the  woman  in  purple  and  scarlet,  or  the 
city  of  Fiome,^^  leaves  no  doubt  that  it  designates  the 
Latin  power.^^ 

31  The  shorter  of  the  annexed  explana-         A 
tions  is  mentioned  already  in  the  second  a 

century  by  Irenaeus,  Cont.  Hceres.  5,  30,  5.  t 

The  longer  of  the  two  originally  appeared,  e 

so  far  as  I  know,  in  the  Westminster  Re-  I 

view  for  October,  1861,  Vol.  76,  p.  261,  v 

Am.  edit.  o 

The  shorter  means  "  Latin  ";  the  longer  s 

means  "The  Latin  kingdom."  The  num- 
bers affixed  to  each  letter  are  those  for 
which  they  are  commonly  used  in  Greek 
enumeration. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  longer 
explanation  the  word  "Latin"  is  spelled 
without  an  e. 

The  statement  that  the  number  is 
[also  ?]  the  number  of  a  man  may  imply 
that  the  name  of  some  offensive  Roman  ij  8 

official  in  the  province  footed  up  666.  606 

82  The  connection  of  ideas  which  prompted  the  presentation  of  Rome 
as  an  impure  woman  (ch.  17,  i-.i;  18,  3)  needs  a  word  of  explanation. 
The  Jewish  nation  being  deemed,  as  already  mentioned,  the  wife  of 
Jehovah,  any  deviation  on  its  part  into  idolatry  was  treated  as  a  wife's 
infidelity.  Hence,  idolatry  was  denominated  impurity,  and  Rome,  the 
support  of  idolatry,  was  depicted  as  mistress  of  impurities.  Her  clothing 
of  purple  and  scarlet  was  probably  suggested  by  the  imperial  costume. 

^  A  detailed  explanation  is  given  in  ch.  17,  7-18.  Verse  18  tells  us 
that  the  woman  —  whose  forehead  bore,  according  to  verse  5,  a  name  of 
secret  import,  "Babylon"  — is  "that  great  city  which  hath  rule  over 
the  kings  of  the  earth."  The  seven  heads  of  the  beast  are  the  seven 
hills  on  which  she  sits,  and  also  the  seven  kings,  one  of  whom  is  clearly 
enough  depicted  as  Nero. 


30 

'H 

8 

1 

300 

/3 

2 

5 

a 

1 

10 

<r 

200 

50 

( 

10 

70 

X 

30 

200 

e 

5 

666 

I 

10 

a 

1 

A 

30 

a 

1 

T 

300 

/ 

10 

V 

50 

268  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  IX. 

Fearful  denunciations  are  uttered  against  any  one  who 
shall  accept  a  mark  of  fidelity  to  the  beast,  however 
necessary  to  worldly  advancement  (ch.  14,  9-il),  and  the 
pimishments  denounced  are  treated  (verse  12)  as  cause  for 
endurance  on  the  part  of  the  consecrated. 

Aside  from  other  calamities,  which  were  to  destroy 
Eome,  the  kings  whom  she  had  subjugated  are  repre- 
sented in  one  passage  as  eager  for  her  destruction,^ 
though  in  another  they  are  represented  as  weeping  over 
her.35 

In  chapter  18,  an  angel  dilates  upon  the  thoroughness 
of  her  destruction,  dwells  upon  the  causes  of  it,  and 
therewith,  in  verse  6,  calls  upon  God's  true  people  to  take 
vengeance  upon  her. 

Chapter  19  opens  with  a  song  of  praise  in  heaven  to 
God,  because  he  has  destroyed  Home  and  avenged  to  the 
uttermost  the  blood  of  his  bondsmen. 

After  the  triumph  over  Home  comes  the  millennium. 
The  beast  and  false  prophet  are  thrown  into  a  lake  of 
fire.^^  Satan  is  bound  for  a  thousand  years.^"  The  mar- 
tyrs, alone  apparently,  are  brought  to  life  and  reign  with 
Christ  during  this  period.^^  At  the  end  of  it  Satan  is 
loosed  for  a  time,  only  to  be  again  overcome,  and  this 
time  he  also  is  thrown  into  the  lake  of  fire  to  keep  com- 
pany with  the  beast  and  false  prophet.^^  The  remainder 
of  mankind  are  then  brought  to  life  and  judged.**^  Then 
the  New  Jerusalem,  which  is  to  become  the  wife  of  the 
Lamb,  makes  her  appearance,  adorned  as  a  bride  for  her 
husband,  and  a  particular  description  is  given  of  her  at- 
tractions.'^^ 

The  denunciations,  with  which  the  book  closes,  against 

3*  Rev.  17,  12,  IC,  17.  38  eii.  20,  4,  5. 

85  Cli.  18,  9.  39  Ch.  20,  10. 

3«  Cli.  19,  JO.  *"  Ch.  20,  5,  13. 

37  Ch.  20,  2,  3. 

*^  Ch.  21,  9-27;  compare  ch.  19,  7-9.  In  one  of  these  passages  the 
time  for  tlie  marriage  is  represented,  before  the  miUennium,  as  liaving 
come.  In  the  other  it  is  represented  as  taking  place  after  the  millennium. 
Notliing  in  the  context  implies  that  the  writer  noticed  or  attempted  to 
Siolve  the  ajiparent  discrepance. 


§  v.]  APOC.iLYPSE.  269 

any  one  who  should  add  to,  or  take  away  from,  its  state- 
ments, M'ere  not  so  peculiar  in  that  age  as  they  seem 


now 


42 


The  book,  though  often  treated  as  a  revelation  made  by 
Jesus,  presents  to  the  student,  whether  of  opinions,  or  of 
Christianity,  serious  and  j^ainful  contrasts  to  the  jNIaster's 
teaching  in  the  Gospels.  Those  records  represent  Jesus 
as  inculcating  forgiveness  to  the  uttermost,  as  weeping 
over  the  city  which  would  soon  put  him  to  death,  and  as 
dying  with  a  prayer  of  forgiveness  for  his  murderers.    The 


*'''  Among  fragments  of  Irenpeus  is  the  following:  "I  adjure  you, 
copj'ist  of  this  book,  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  by  that  glorious 
coming  of  his,  in  which  he  shall  come  to  judge  the  living  and  the  dead, 
that  you  compare  your  copy  and  carefully  correct  it  by  this  exemplar 
whence  you  transcribe;  and  that  you  likewise  transcribe  this  adjuration 
and  place  it  in  your  copy."  —  Irenaeus,  Ojip.  1,  p.  821,  edit.  Stieren,  or 
p.  339,  edit.  Massuet. 

Eusebius  adopts  the  above  and  prefixes  it  to  his  Chronicon ;  see  Jerome's 
translation  thereof  in  his  Works,  Vol.  8,  col.  9,  10,  edit.  Vallarsius.  He 
also,  in  his  Ecclesiastical  History,  5,  20,  copies  and  commends  it. 

The  following  is  from  Rufinus,  a  writer  at  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century:  '"'I,  in  the  presence  of  God  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son  and 
Spirit,  invoke  every  one  who  shall  transcribe  or  read  these  books,  and  I 
cite  him  by  the  belief  of  a  future  kingdom,  by  the  sacrament  (?)  of  res- 
urrection from  the  dead,  by  that  eternal  fire  which  is  prepared  for  the 
devil  and  his  angels ;  that,  as  he  would  not  possess  for  an  eternal  inher- 
itance that  place  where  is  screaming  and  gnashing  of  teeth  and  where 
their  fire  is  not  extinguished  and  their  worm  dieth  not,  he  shall  neither 
take  away,  nor  insert,  nor  change,  but  shall  compare  with  the  exemplars, 
from  which  he  wrote,  and  shall  correct  literally  and  shall  separate  [the 
words] ;  and  that  he  shall  not  use  an  unamended  manuscript  nor  one  in 
which  the  words  are  not  separated,  lest  difficulty  of  apprehension,  if  the 
manuscript  be  not  separated  [into  words],  .should  occasion  greater  obscu- 
rity to  readers."  —  Prologue  of  Rufinus  to  the  De  Princijfiis  of  Origen, 
in  Origen's  works,  Voh  21,  pp.  13,  14,  edit.  Lommatzsch,  or  Vol.  1,  p.  46, 
edit,  de  la  Paie. 

The  last  caution  was  owing  to  the  fact  that  many  manuscripts  were 
written  without  separation  of  words,  so  that  they  presented  a  mere  mass 
of  consecutive  letters.  Compare  also,  in  Note  D  of  the  Appendix,  the 
concluding  extract  from  the  Book  of  Enoch. 


270  JUDMSM  AT   ROME.  [CII.  X. 

present  work  inculcates  a  spirit  of  revenge,  not  merely  in 
a  casual  passage,  but  repeatedly,*^  and  without  its  force 
being  broken  by  a  lesson  of  forgiveness  or  forbearance, 
however  it  may  be  palliated  by  Koman  crime. 

Jesus,  according  to  the  Gospels,  foretold  the  overthrow 
of  Jerusalem,  but  neither  her  subsequent  splendor  nor 
Eome's  destruction.  This  book  presents  an  opposite  an- 
ticipation in  each  respect. 

Jesus  in  the  Gospels  teaches  a  future  when  neither  at 
Gerizim  nor  in  Jerusalem  should  men  worship.**  This 
book  represents  the  true  worshippers  as  congregated  in 
Jerusalem,  while  the  vile  and  worthless  dwell  outside.*^ 


CHAPTER  X. 

CHKONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  70-138. 

§  I.    A.  D.  70  -  81.     The  Reign  of  Vespasian  a  Coalition. 
That  of  Titus  favors  Reaction. 

The  reign  of  Vespasian  was  a  coalition  between  him- 
self as  leader  of  the  popular  party  and  Mucianus  as  leader 
of  the  moderate  patricians.     Mucianus  had  been  consul 

*3  The  enduring  martyr  is  to  rule  the  Gentiles  with  a  rod  of  iron 
(ch.  2,  2G,  27) ;  Jesus  is  represented  as  about  to  rule  them  in  the  same 
way  (12,  5;  19,15);  the  torments  of  the  damned  are  ground  for  endur- 
ance of  the  saints  (14, 12)  ;  the  destruction  of  heathens  is  sucli  that  for 
sixteen  hundred  furlongs,  or  two  hundred  miles,  their  blood  rises  to  the 
bridles  of  the  horses  (14,  20) ;  the  people  of  God  are  urged  to  repay  upon 
Rome  her  injuries  towards  them,  and  to  requite  her  twice  twofold  (18,  (i), 
and  are  in  the  next  verse  told  to  punish  her  for  her  self-complacency. 
Even  the  heavens,  the  apostles,  and  the  prophets  are  called  upon  to  re- 
joice over  her  punishment. 

**  Gospel  of  John  4,  21. 

*6  Rev.  22,  3,  4,  15. 


§1.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARKATIVE,  A.  D.  70-81.  271 

in  A.  D.  52.  He  and  the  moderate  patricians  cannot  have 
sympathized  with  the  high-handed  course  of  their  asso- 
ciates, and  his  voluntary  exile  was  doubtless  the  result  of 
non-assent  to  ultra-patricianisra.^ 

He  and  Vespasian  had,  by  political  position,  been  at 
variance.  They,  however,  became  reconciled,  and  united 
their  forces.  Titus,  who  seems  to  have  been  on  good 
terms  with  patricians  and  to  have  been  partly  under  their 
influence,  was  the  envoy,  if  not  the  originator,  of  reconcil- 
iation between  his  father  and  Mucianus.^ 

What  the  terms  of  agreement  may  have  been,  we  do  not 
know ;  but  all  such  agreements  imply  concession  by  one 
or  both  parties,  and  the  reign  of  Vespasian  contained  one 
or  two  acts  whicli  must  by  his  own  followers  have  been 
deemed  a  surrender  of  popular  to  patrician  ideas.^  A  ques- 
tion may  be  how  far  this  was  due  to  Mucianus  and  how 
far  to  the  semi-patricianism  of  Titus,  who  is  said  to  have 
acted  as  his  father's  colleague.*     Any  claim  of  his  to  a 

1  "Suspecting  the  displeasure  of  Claudius,  he  [Mucianus]  retired  into 
Asia,  and  there  lived  in  obscurity,  as  little  removed  from  the  condition 
of  an  exile,  as  he  was  afterwards  from  that  of  a  sovereign."  —  Tacitus, 
Hist.  1,  10,  Bohn's  trans. 

2  "Amongst  the  governors  of  provinces,  Licinius  Mucianus,  dropping 
the  grudge  arising  from  a  jealousy  of  which  he  had  hitherto  made  no 
secret,  promised  to  join  him  with  the  Syrian  army."  —  Suetonius, 
Vespas.  6,  Bohn's  trans.  "Vespasian  in  Judaea,  and  Mucianus  in  Syria, 
.  .  .  beheld  each  other,  for  some  time,  with  the  jealousy  of  rivals.  .  .  . 
Mutual  friends  made  the  first  advances  towards  a  reconciliation ;  after- 
wards Titus  [??]  formed  the  great  bond  of  union  between  them."  —  Taci- 
tus, Hist.  2,  5,  Bohn's  trans. 

3  The  expulsion  of  Stoics,  probably  in  A.  D.  71,  mentioned  in  Ch.  III. 
note  45,  is  attributed  by  its  narrator  to  Mucianus.  The  death  of  Helvid- 
ius  Priscus  (Sueton.  Vespas.  1.5)  must  have  been  conceded  by,  rather  than 
acceptable  to,  Vespasian,  though  Helvidius  was  (Dio  Cass.  66, 12),  equally 
as  his  father-in-law,  Thrasea  P^etus,  an  incarnation  of  patricianism.  The 
patrician  wing  of  the  coalition,  constantly  in  collision  with  him  in  the 
Senate,  may  have  been  anxious  to  get  rid  of  him. 

*  "  From  that  time  [when  he  arrived  in  Italy]  he  constantly  acted  as 
colleague  with  his  father,  and,  indeed,  as  regent  of  the  empire."  — Sue- 
ton.  Titles,  6,  Bohn's  trans. 


272  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

sliare  of  authority,  as  against  his  father,  was  sure  to  be 
magnified  by  reactionaries  who  had  previously,  for  their 
own  selfish  purposes,  counselled  him  to  revolt  against  his 
parent.^  He  and  Berenice,  sister  of  the  younger  Herod 
Agrippa,  had  become  mutually  attached.  His  reluctant 
dismissal  of  her  may  have  been  due  either  to  fear  in  the 
patrician  wing  of  the  coalition,  lest  association  with  Ju- 
daism might  aflbrd  a  handle  to  its  enemies,  or  else  to  an 
influence  of  outside  patricians  upon  Titus.  The  elo- 
quence of  Quintilian,  in  an  assembly  over  which  Berenice 
presided,  had  proved  insufficient  to  remove  political  ob- 
stacles.^ The  beating  of  one  Stoic  (or  Cynic)  and  decap- 
itation of  another  may  have  found  Titus  in  a  mood  to 
sympathize  with  it.'' 

^  "The  soldiers  .  .  .  saluted  him  by  the  title  of  Emperor;  and  upon 
his  quitting  the  province  soon  afterwards,  would  needs  have  detained 
him,  earnestly  begging  him,  and  that  not  without  threats,  '  either  to  stay, 
or  take  them  all  with  him.'  This  occurrence  gave  rise  to  the  suspicion 
of  his  being  engaged  in  a  design  to  rebel  against  his  father,  and  claim 
for  himself  the  goveenment  of  the  East;  and  the  suspicion  increased, 
when,  on  liis  way  to  Alexandria,  he  wore  a  diadem  at  the  consecration 
of  the  ox  Apis  at  Memphis.  .  .  .  Making,  therefore,  what  haste  he  could 
into  Italy,  .  .  .  Presenting  himself  unexpectedly  to  his  father,  he  said, 
.  . .  '  I  am  come,  father,  I  am  come.'  "  —  Sueton.  Titus,  5,  Bohu's  trans. 
He  had  in  fact  (Oros.  7,  9,  cited  in  Indirect  Testimony,  p.  79)  permitted 
himself  to  be  proclaimed  emperor  against  his  father,  prompted  probably 
by  patrician  officers. 

^  "  Some  have  been  judges  in  their  own  cases.  For  I  find  in  the  books 
of  'Observations,'  issued  by  Septimius,  that  Cicero  was  present  [as  ad- 
vocate] in  such  a  cause,  and  I  plead  the  cause  of  Queen  Berenice  before 
herself."  —  Quintilian,  4,  1,  18,  19. 

"  Bcreniccn  statim  ab  %irhe  dimisit  invitus  invitam.  He  immediately, 
with  mutual  reluctance,  dismissed  Berenice  from  the  city."  —  Sueton. 
Titus,  7.  This  must  mean  after  the  last  effort  to  conciliate  public 
opinion  had  proved  abortive.  Suetonius  had  previously  mentioned  the 
common  report  that  he  had  promised  to  marry  her.  Berenice,  according 
to  Dio  Cass.  66,  15,  "dwelt  in  the  palace,  .  .  .  expected  to  marry  him 
[Titus],  and  conducted  herself  as  already  his  wife,  insomuch  that  he, 
having  discovered  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  Komans  at  these  things, 
sent  her  away." 

"  After  expulsion  of  the  Stoics  some  of  the  more  dogged  and  cynical 


§X.J  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  70-81.  273 

In  the  outset  of  the  present  period  the  omission  of  a 
custom  has  been  deemed  worthy  of  record  by  Dio  Cas- 
sius,  and  this  omission  bears  indirect  testimony  to  the 
spread  of  Judaism.  It  was  customary  at  Eome,  if  a  gen- 
eral conquered  Britain,  or  Germany,  or  Parthia,  or  some 
other  country,  to  call  him  the  British,  tlie  German,  the 
Parthian,  or  by  the  name  of  the  conquered  country,  what- 
ever that  might  be.  But,  though  Vespasian  and  Titus  had 
won  their  laurels  in  Judrea,  neither  was  called  Judaicus, 
the  Jewish.^  To  have  borne  such  a  title  would  probably 
have  conveyed  the  impression  that  they  were  converts  to 
Judaism  rather  than  its  conquerors.  Of  no  other  country 
save  Judiea  would  this  have  held  true. 

Vespasian's  encouragement  of  learning^  may  have  been 
due  to  his  position  as  leader  of  the  popular  party,  rather 
tlian  to  personal  appreciation  of  its  merits.  If  he  kept  a 
monthly  fast,  this  may  have  been  due  to  some  monothe- 
istic custom  of  his  wife  Cccnis.^*'     His  avoidance  of  for- 

aniong  tliem  had,  to  use  Dio's  expression,  "somehow  crept  [back]  into 
the  city."  Of  these,  "Diogenes  first  entered  the  theatre  full  of  men, 
and  venting  many  calumnies  against  them  [Titus  and  Berenice]  re- 
ceived a  beating  therefor.  After  him,  Heras,  expecting  nothing  worse, 
shouted  out  currishly  many  improprieties,  and,  because  of  it,  had  his 
head  taken  off."  —  Dio  Cass.  66,  15.  If  the  analogy  between  Jewish 
and  Stoic  views  were  one  of  the  causes  why  these  men  had  been  expelled, 
they  probably  found  fault  with  toleration  of  Judaism  in  the  palace,  whilst 
they  had  been  punished  for  sharing  some  of  its  views. 

*  "Both  took  the  title  of  emperor,  but  neither  received  the  title  of 
Jewish."  — Dio  Cass.  66,  7. 

3  "He  was  a  great  encourager  of  learning  and  the  liberal  arts.  He 
first  granted  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  professors  of  rhetoric  the  yearly 
stipend  of  a  hundred  thousand  sestei-ces  each,  out  of  the  exchequer.  He 
also  bought  the  freedom  of  superior  poets  and  artists,  and  gave  a  noble 
gratuity  to  the  restorer  of  the  Coan  of  Venus,  and  to  another  artist  who 
repaired  the  Colossus.  Some  one  offering  to  convey  some  immense  col- 
umns into  the  Capitol,  at  a  small  expense,  by  a  mechanical  contrivance, 
he  rewarded  him  very  handsomely  for  his  invention,  but  would  not  accept 
his  service,  saying,  'Suffer  me  to  find  maintenance  for  the  poor  people.'  " 
—  Sueton.  Vcspns.  18,  Bohn's  trans. 

^'^  "  He  enjoyed  a  good  state  of  health,  though  he  used  no  other  means 
12*  K 


274  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

eign  war  agreed  with  popular  rather  than  with  patrician 
ideas.^^  The  addition  or  substitution  of  new  members  in 
the  Senate  ^^  must  have  been  grateful  to  both  wings  of 
the  coalition.  The  new  members  cannot  have  been  rad- 
icals, and  were  not  long  in  adopting  some  peculiarities 
of  the  privileged  class. 

When  the  death  of  Vespasian  left  Titus  sole  ruler,  a 
reaction  in  favor  of  patricianism  must  soon  have  become 
strong.  How  far  Titus  sympathized  with  it  and  how  far 
he  merely  yielded  to  it  may  be  questions.  He  had  in 
boyhood  been  in  the  family  of  Claudius,^^  possibly  as  a 
hostage,  since  the  aristocracy  might  mistrust  his  father's 
popular  tendencies.  The  influences  which  there  sur- 
rounded him  may  have  swayed  his  character,  or  thrown 
him  into  association  with  patricianism.  In  his  reign  we 
find  a  vast  amphitheatre  finished  for  the  demoralizing 
public  games.  We  also  find  murder  of  the  common  peo- 
ple, but  impunity  for  senators.^*  The  latter  was  due  to 
himself,  and  the  former  must  at  least  have  received  no 
vigorous  repression  at  his  hands. 

An  eruption  of  Vesuvius  during  his  reign  made  even 
reactionaries  believe  that  the  world  was  coming  to  an 
end.^^      Subsequently  to  this   eruption  a   large  fire  oc- 

to  preserve  it  tlian  repeated  friction,  .  .  .  besides  fasting  one  day  in  every 
month."  —  Sueton.  Vcspas.  20,  Bohn's  trans.  Caenis,  his  wife,  was  a 
freedwoman  of  Antonia,  concerning  whom  see  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot- 
note 56. 

11  Vespasian  "gave  no  aid  to  the  Parthians  when  engaged  in  some  war 
and  asking  his  alliance.  He  said  that  it  was  not  proper  for  him  to  inter- 
meddle with  other  people's  business."  —  Dio  Cass.  66,  15.  Compare 
Ch.  V.  §  II. 

12  Tac.  An.  3,  iifi,  qnoted  in  Ch.  V.  note  47. 

13  Sueton.  Titus,  2. 

1*  "  The  divine  Titus  with  his  gi-eat  mind  made  provision  for  our 
security  and  revenge,  ...  on  which  account  we  [senators]  made  liini  a 
god."  —  Pliny,  Pancgyr.  35,  -l.  Yet  compare  Sueton.  Titus,  9  ;  Dio 
Cass.  66,  V.\  who  may  perhaps  have  considei'ed  execution  of  oonmion 
people  as  not  worth  mention.  The  latter,  however,  say.-!  {[hid.),  that 
Titns  "did  not  attend  to  charges  of  unbelief." 

^5  "  Many  and  enormous  men,  exceeding  human  stature,  such  as  the 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  81-96.  275 

curred  at  Eorae  and  also  a  pestilence.^^  One  means 
adopted  for  checking  the  latter  ignored  modern  sanitary 
regulations,  and  may  have  increased  the  pestilence  by 
communicating  to  public  places  the  odors  of  a  slaughter- 
house. 

§  n.   A.  D.  SI -96.    Domitian.   Ex]Julsion  of  Monotheism. 

DoMiTiAN,  besides  being  an  adept  in  some  pliysical  ex- 
ercises,^' was  a  man  of  more  ability  and  scholarship  than 

giants  are  depicted,  became  visible,  at  one  time  on  the  mountain,  at  an- 
other in  the  circumjacent  country,  and  in  the  cities,  wandering  about 
day  and  night  on  the  earth  and  traversing  the  air.  .  .  .  Then  there  was 
much  fire  and  frightful  smoke,  so  that  the  whole  air  was  darkened  and 
the  whole  sun  hidden  as  in  an  eclipse.  Night  took  the  place  of  daj'^  and 
darkness  of  light.  Some  thought  the  giants  had  risen  again,  for  many 
figures  of  them  were  visible  through  the  smoke,  and,  besides  this,  a  sound 
of  tmmpets  was  heard.  Others  again  thought  that  the  world  was  being 
reduced  to  chaos,  or  destroyed  by  fire.  .  .  .  The  quantity  of  ashes  was 
such  that  part  of  it  was  carried  to  Africa,  Syria,  and  Egypt.  It  entered 
Rome  also  and  filled  the  air  over  it  and  darkened  the  sun.  There  was 
for  many  days  there  no  little  fear  among  men,  since  they  did  not  know 
and  could  not  conjecture  what  had  happened.  They  thought  that  all 
things  above  and  below  had  been  npset,  that  the  sun  had  been  extin- 
guished against  the  earth,  and  that  the  earth  had  gone  up  to  heaven."  — 
Dio  Cass.  66,  22,  23.  The  younger  Pliny,  who  was  nearer  the  scene  of 
convulsion,  tells  us  that  he  believed  himself  and  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
be  perishing  together,  me  cum  omnibus,  omnia  mccum  perire.  —  Pliny, 
Jun.,  Epist.  6,  20,  17. 

16  "There  happened  in  his  reign  some  dreadful  accidents;  an  eruption 
of  Mount  Vesuvius,  in  Campania,  and  a  fire  in  Rome,  which  continued 
during  three  days  and  three  nights ;  besides  a  plague,  such  as  was  scarcely 
ever  knowTi  before.  .  .  .  For  the  relief  of  the  people  during  the  plague, 
he  employed,  in  the  way  of  sacrifices  and  remedies,  all  means  both 
divine  and  human."  — Suetonius,  Titus,  8,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

"The  ashes  [from  Vesuvius]  caused  at  the  time  no  serious  evil,  but 
eventually  brought  upon  them  [the  Romans]  a  dreadful  pestilential 
disease.  In  the  following  year  a  superterrestrial  fire  ravaged  a  large  part 
of  Rome.  ...  It  consumed  the  Octavian  buildings  with  the  books  [that 
is,  public  libraries],  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  and  the  temples 
in  that  vicinity."  —  Dio  Cass.  66,  2.S,  24. 

1^  "  Many  persons  have  seen  hinr  often  kill  a  hundred  wild  animals,  of 


276  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

either  his  father  or  brother.  His  anti-patrician  tenden- 
cies may  have  inclined  or  compelled  him  to  take  no  part 
in  their  administrations.  When  the  government  devolved 
on  him,  he  gave  up  scholarly  pursuits  for  his  new  duties, 
devoting  himself  to  these  latter  with  laborious  attention 
and  thoughtfulness.^^  His  capacity  for  civil  administra- 
tion is  attested  by  the  condition  of  the  provinces  during 
his  reign.  At  Rome  he  seems  to  have  distinguished 
between  prosecutions  for  misdeeds  and  those  prompted 
by  private  jealousy  or  greediness,  encouraging  the  former 
and  discouraging  the  latter. ^^    He  executed  the  laws,  even 

various  kinds,  at  his  Alban  retreat,  and  fix  his  arrows  in  their  heads  with 
such  dexterity,  that  he  could,  in  two  shots,  pLint  them  like  a  pair  of 
horns  in  each.  He  would  sometimes  direct  his  arrows  against  the  hand 
of  a  boy  standing  at  a  distance,  and  expanded  as  a  mark,  with  such  pre- 
cision, that  they  all  passed  between  the  boy's  fingers  without  hurting  him." 
—  Sueton.  Down'^.  19,  Bohn's  trans. 

1^  "Care  for  the  world  has  turned  Germanicus  Augustus  [Domitian] 
aside  from  the  studies  which  he  had  marked  out." — Quintilian,  10, 1,  91. 
"In  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  he  gave  up  the  study  of  the  liberal  sci- 
ences. ...  He  perused  nothing  but  the  Commentaries  and  Acts  of  Ti- 
berius Cfflsar,  .  .  .  though  he  could  converse  with  elegance."  —  Sueton. 
Doviif.  20,  Bohn's  trans.  Suetonius  was  no  friend  of  Domitian.  The 
following,  therefore,  cannot  be  attributed  to  partiality:  "  In  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  he  was  diligent  and  assiduous ;  and  frequently  sat  in 
the  forum  out  of  cour.se,  to  cancel  the  judgments  of  the  court  of  the  One 
Hundred,  which  had  been  procured  through  favor  or  interest.  .  .  .  He 
set  a  mark  of  infamy  upon  judges  who  were  convicted  of  taking  bribes, 
as  well  as  upon  their  assessors  [judicial  assistants].  He  likewise  instigated 
the  tribunes  of  the  people  to  jirosecute  a  corrupt  aedile  for  extortion,  and 
to  desire  the  Senate  to  appoint  judges  for  his  trial.  He  likewise  took 
such  effectual  care  in  iiunishing  magistrates  of  the  city,  and  governors  of 
provinces,  guilty  of  malversation,  that  they  never  were  at  any  time 
MORE  moderate  OR  MORE  JUST."  —  Suetoii.  Domit.  8,  Bohn's  trans. 

1'  Scandalous  libels,  published  to  defame  persons  of  rank,  of  either  sex, 
he  suppressed,  and  inflicted  upon  their  authors  a  mark  of  infamy.  .  .  . 
He  put  a  stop  to  false  prosecutions  in  the  exchequer  [prince's  trea.sury], 
by  severely  punishing  the  prosecutors  ;  and  this  saying  of  his  was 
much  taken  notice  of :  '  That  a  prince  who  does  not  punish  [such]  prose- 
cutors, encourages  them.'"  —  Sueton.  Domit.  9,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

"He  exonerated  all  those  who  had  been  under  prosecution  from  the 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  81-96.  277 

when  they  favored  his  j^olitical  eneinies,^^  and  forbore  to 
avail  himself  of  them  in  some  cases  where  they  would 
have  served  his  private  interest.^^  He  can  have  had  no  be- 
lief in  heathen  deities,^^  yet  in  a  heathen  community  his 
selection  of  Minerva  as  a  chief  object  of  attention  shows 
the  literary  direction  which  he  wished  to  give  otliers.^^ 
The  same  tendency  is  manifested  by  comparing  his  action 
with  that  of  Titus.     The  latter  had  devoted  the  furniture 


treasury  for  above  five  years  before  ;  and  would  not  suffer  suits  to  be  re- 
newed, unless  it  was  done  within  a  year,  and  on  condition  that  the  prose- 
cutor should  be  banished  if  he  could  not  make  good  his  cause.  The 
secretaries  of  the  quaestors  having  engaged  in  trade,  according  to  custom, 
but  contrary  to  the  Clodian  law,  he  pardoned  them  for  what  was  past." 

—  Sueton.  Domit.  9,  Bohn's  trans. 

^'^  "He  occasionally  cautioned  the  judges  of  the  court  of  recovery  to 
beware  of  being  too  ready  to  admit  claims  for  freedom  brought  before 
them.  .  .  .  And  to  preserve  pure  and  undefiled  the  reverence  due  to  the 
gods,  he  ordered  the  soldiers  to  demolish  a  tomb,  which  one  of  his  freed- 
men  had  erected  for  his  son  out  of  the  stones  designed  for  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Capitolinus,  and  to  sink  in  the  sea  the  bones  and  relics  buried  in 
it."  —  Sueton.  Domit.  8,  Bohn's  trans.  "  Such  portions  of  land  as  had 
been  left  when  it  was  divided  amongst  the  veteran  soldiers,  he  granted 
to  the  ancient  possessors,  as  belonging  to  them  by  prescription."  —  Sue- 
ton. Z'omt^.  9,  Bohn's  trans.  Domitian  "  gave  up  Claudius  Pacatus,  al- 
though a  centurion,  to  his  master,  because  he  was  proved  to  be  a  slave." 

—  Dio  Cass.  67,  \?,. 

2^  "To  all  about  him  he  was  generous  even  to  profusion,  and  recom- 
mended nothing  more  earnestly  to  them  than  to  avoid  doing  anything 
mean.  He  would  not  accept  the  property  left  him  by  those  who  had  chil- 
dren."—  Sneton.  Domit.  9,  Bohn's  trans. 

^'^  He  openly  opposed  sacrifices,  and,  according  to  Suetonius,  "purposed 
an  edict  forbidding  the  sacrifice  of  oxen,  being  prompted  thereto  by  the 
recollection  of  Virgil's  line  {Gcorg.  2,  537),  — 

'  Ere  an  impious  race  feasted  on  slaughtered  bullocks.'  " 

Sueton.  Domit.  9. 

Contrast  reactionary  coin  in  note  124.  Virgil  copied  probably  from 
that  part  of  the  Erythraean  verses  (Append.  Note  A,  §  ii.)  marked  B  or  C. 

^  Domitian  "  especially  honored  Minerva. "  —  Dio  Cass.  67,  l.  Com- 
pare Sueton.  Dojiiit.  4.  Minerva  is  said  (Dio  Cass.  Sturz's  edit.  Vol.  6, 
p.  574,  note  2)  to  be  found  frequently  on  coins  of  Domitian. 


278  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  X. 

of  his  palace  to  ornament  the  temples  which  he  rebuilt ; 
Domitian  bent  his  energies  to  replace  the  libraries.^* 

The  charge  against  him  of  licentiousness  comes  from 
those  who  murdered  him,  and  is  inconsistent  with  his 
known  habits.  His  temperance  at  table,  his  mental  labo- 
riousness  and  habits  of  silent  reflection  contradict  the  sup- 
position of  social  vices.2^ 

Near  the  close  of  his  reign  the  word  "  Lord  "  in  address- 
ing him  is  said  to  have  been  common.  This  admits  easy 
explanation.26  The  term  "  God  "  may  in  some  instances 
have  been  applied  to  him,  and  its  use  have  been  exagger- 
ated by  hostile  statements.  The  most  natural  explana- 
tion is  that  patricians  endeavored  to  override  justice  by 
quoting,  as  authority,  decisions  of  the  "god"  Titus  or 
the  "god"  Claudius.  Domitian  doubtless  thought  him- 
self equal  to  any  god  of  patrician  manulacture,^'  and  if 

2*  "He  took  care  to  restore  at  a  vast  expense  the  libraries,  whicli  had 
been  burnt  down  ;  collecting  manuscripts  from  all  parts,  and  sending 
scribes  to  Alexandria  either  to  copy  or  correct  them."  —  Sueton.  Vomit. 
20,  Bohn's  trans. 

2^  His  entertainments  "  were  soon  over,  for  he  never  prolonged  them 
after  sunset,  and  indulged  in  no  revel  after.  For  till  bedtime  he  did 
nothing  else  but  walk  by  himself  in  private."  —  Sueton.  Bom  it.  21, 
Bohn's  trans.  "  In  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  he  used  to  spend  daily  an 
hour  by  himself  in  private."  —  Sueton.  Boinit.  3,  Bohn's  trans.  The 
statement  by  Suetonius  that  he  occupied  himself  during  this  hour 
"catching  flies,"  is  a  mere  absurdity. 

2^  In  Greek  the  word  Kijpios  equally  as  the  word  Hcrrm  German,  is  an 
appellation  for  the  Supreme  Being,  or  for  any  personal  acquaintance.  In 
the  latter  language  the  address  on  nearly  every  letter  begins  with  the 
same  word  wherewith  the  Being  of  beings  is  addressed  in  prayer.  If 
Domitian  had  gathered  around  him  any  literary  Greeks,  they  would  be 
apt  to  use,  and  others  might  copy  in  Latin,  their  accu.stomed  form  of  ad- 
dress. 

'■"  Domitian  "  thought  himself  the  same  as  the  gods  [whom  we  had 
made  ?]."  — Pliny,  Jun.  Panegyr.  33,  4.  "  A  certain  Juventius  Celsus, 
who  was  among  the  first  conspirators  against  him,  .  .  .  addressing  him 
repeatedly  as  master  and  god,  by  which  terms  others  already  addressed 
him."  —  Dio  Cass.  67,  13.  "  With  eqiial  arrogance,  when  he  dictated 
the  form  of  a  letter  to  be  used  by  his  procurators,  he  began  it  thus  :    '  Our 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL    NARRATIVE,    A.  D.  81-96.  279 

popular  politicians  applied  the  term  to  him  they  probably 
did  it  in  self-defence. 

The  public  games  during  Domitian's  reign  must  have 
endangered,  if  they  did  not  destroy,  life.  They  must  also 
have  been  expensive,  even  to  wastefulness.  In  tliis  respect 
he  cannot  have  been  a  disciple  of  Tiberius,  nor  have  shared 
the  views  of  monotheists.  Neither  can  his  conscience 
have  led  him  to  shun  all  appearance  of  assent  to  heathen 
belief.  He  may  have  been  irritable,  but  his  forbearance 
towards  his  enemies,^^  until  about  the  last  year  of  his 
reign,  evinces  that  he  seldom  gave  way  to  this  tendency. 

In  A.  D.  95,  perhaps  towards  its  close,  Domitian  came 
into  collision  with  the  aristocracy,  who  had  plotted,  if 
not  openly  attempted,  rebellion.  If  we  trust  the  accounts 
of  patricians  and  their  copyists,  we  should  have  to  infer 
that  at  this  identical  moment  Domitian  aided  his  oppo- 
nents by  driving  their  enemies  out  of  Rome,  that  is,  by 
expelling   monotheists,^^  Stoics,  and  other  allies  of  the 

Lord  and  God  commands  so  and  so.'" — Sueton.  Domit.  13,  Bohn's 
trans.  Political  misrepresentation  was  so  incessant  and  unscrupulons, 
that  the  phraseology  of  any  such  letter  should  not  be  attributed  without 
question  to  Domitian.  Popular  politicians  may,  when  authority  of  the  god 
Claudius,  or  Titus,  was  quoted,  have  met  it  by  saying  :  our  Lord  and  God 
commands  as  follows.  It  is  obvious  from  the  language  and  doings  of  both 
political  parties  that  reverence  for  the  heathen  deities  had  no  existence. 

2^  The  Senate  repeatedly  endeavored  to  obtain  from  Domitian  (Die 
Cass.  67,  2)  his  consent  to  an  enactment  which  should  render  any  execu- 
tion of  a  senator  illegal,  unless  the  Senate  had  agreed  to  it.  This  would 
have  insured  to  their  order  a  practical  impunity.  Domitian,  on  the  other 
hand,  shared,  doubtless,  a  common  opinion  concerning  the  Senate  (Pliny, 
Jun.  9,  13),  as  dishonestly  forbearing  towards  delinquents  in  its  own 
ranks,  but  towards  no  one  else,  and  pronounced  the  lot  of  princes  a  hard 
one  (Sueton.  Domit.  21),  because,  even  if  they  discovered  a  conspiracy, 
no  one  would  believe  them  concerning  it  until  after  they  had  been  mur- 
dered. Tacitus  tells  us  (Agric.  45)  that  Agricola  died  [August  23, 
A.  D.  93]  while  his  kindred  and  friends  were  yet  safe  ;  while  Cams,  the 
prosecutor,  had  as  yet  gained  but  one  victory. 

'■^  "In  the  same  year  [a.  d.  95]  Domitian  put  to  death,  beside  many 
others,  the  consul  Flavins  Clemens,  though  his  relative,  and  though  mar- 
ried to    Flavia  Domitilla,  also  his  relative.     A  charge  of  atheism  was 


280  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [ciI.  X. 

popular  party.  This  statement  is  so  improbable  that, 
before  considering  its  only  admissible  explanation,  I  shall 
give  a  surmise  of  my  own.  The  surmise  is  based  upon 
the  three  following  considerations  :  Tlie  aristocracy  who 
expelled  the  Jews  and  monotheists  in  the  time  of  Tiberius 
charged  their  own  deeds  upon  that  emperor,  —  a  course 
of  conduct  which,  as  regards  other  matters,  they  repeated 
in  the  case  of  Caligula.  Secondly,  Tertullian  tells  us  that 
Domitian  recalled  the  monotheists.^^  If  so,  the  charge 
that  he  expelled  them  is  probably  a  patrician  falsehood. 
Thirdly,  the  statement  of  Dio  Chrysostom,  a  non-patrician, 
then  resident  at  Eome,  attributes  the  death  of  Clemens, 
not  to  alleged  rebellion  against  Domitian,  but  to  his  near 
relationship  with  him.  This  accords  best  with  his  mur- 
der by  the  aristocracy,  not  by  Domiti'an.^^ 

brought  against  both,  under  which  charge  many  others  were  condemned 
who  had  strayed  into  Jewish  customs.  Some  of  these  were  executed,  and 
others  deprived  of  their  property.  But  Domitilla  was  only  banished  to 
Pandateria."  —  Dio  Cass.  67,  14.  "His  last  [?]  victim  was  Flavius 
Clemens,  his  cousin -german,  a  man  below  contempt  for  his  want  of  en- 
ergy, whose  sons,  then  of  very  tender  age,  he  had  avowedly  destined  for 
his  successors.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  he  suddenly  put  him  to  death  upon 
some  very  slight  suspicion,  almost  before  he  was  well  out  of  his  consul- 
ship."—  Sueton.  Domit.  15,  Bohn's  trans. 

^^  Tertullian,  after  mentioning  Nero's  persecution  of  the  Christians, 
continues :  "The  same  thing  was  attempted  by  Domitian,  who  as  regards 
[the]  cruelty  [in  his  nature]  was  a  portion  of  Nero ;  but,  in  so  far  as  he 
was  also  human,  he  readily  put  an  end  to  his  undertaking;  restoring 
those  even  whom  he  had  banished."  —  Tertull.  Ajiol.  5. 

^1  The  anti-patricianism  of  Dio  is  plain  from  his  writings  and  from  his 
friendship  with  Nerva.  He  speaks  of  the  "most  excellent  Nerva,"  and 
calls  him  a  "]>hilantliropic  emperor,  who  also  loves  me  and  was  long  ago 
my  friend." —  Dio  Chrysost.  Oral.  45,  2  ;  Vol.  2,  p.  202  (otherwise  .m.3). 
This  writer  issued  at  Athens  a  discour.se  on  the  subject  of  his  flight, 
which  begins  as  follows :  "  When  I  had  occasion  to  fly  because  of  alleged 
friendship  with  a  man,  who  was  not  a  wrong-doer,  and  who  was  most 
nearly  related  to  those  (the  Flavian  family)  who  were  then  prosperous 
and  at  the  head  of  the  government,  and  who  died  on  the  very  account, 
which  to  many,  and  to  nearly  all,  made  him  se(>ni  foitunate,  because 
[namely]  of  his  belonging  to  their  family  and  relationship,  this  being 


§n.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,    A.  D.    81-96.  281 

I  assume  that  Domitian  was  in  Rome,  August  23, 
A.  D.  93,  and  surmise  that  his  latest  war  did  not  begin  before 
A.  D.  94  or  95,  during  much  of  which  latter  year  he  must 
have  been  absent  from  Rome.  I  suppose  that  the  senato- 
rial party  during  his  absence  planned  a  rebellion,  and  by 
enforcing  the  Jewish  tax  in  a  most  odious  manner,^^  com- 
pelled Jews,  with  not  a  few  of  their  converts,  to  leave 
Rome  ;  further,  that  by  a  senatorial  enactment  they  drove 
out  monotheists,  whether  Christian  or  otherwise.  I  sup- 
pose that  they  murdered  the  consul  Flavius  Clemens,  who 
was  cousin  of  Domitian,  and  a  monotheist  or  Christian.^ 
The  children  of  Clemens  disappear  from  history  at  this 
date,  and  were  murdered  doubtless  with  their  parent.     I 


charged  against  me  as  a  fault  that  I  was  the  man's  friend  and  adviser. 
...  I  considered,"  etc.  —  Dio  Chrysost.  Orat.  13,  l  ;  VoL  1,  p.  418, 
Leipsic  edit,  of  1798.  In  this  same  oration  Dio  mentions,  what  the 
reader  will  find  in  Note  A  of  the  Apjjendix,  foot-note  130,  the  character 
of  his  —  somewhat  monotheistic  —  teaching  to  the  Romans. 

^  "  The  [poll]  tax  on  Jews  was,  to  a  greater  extent  than  other  taxes, 
exacted  with  the  most  unsparing  severity  (or  bitterness,  accrhissime). 
Persons  were  subjected  to  this  who,  with  no  profession  of  Judaism, 
lived  after  a  Jewish  manner,  or  who,  by  dissembling  their  [Jcwisli]  de- 
scent, had  avoided  the  tribute  imposed  on  their  race.  I  remember  having 
been  present,  while  yet  a  youth,  when  an  old  man  of  ninety  years  was 
inspected  by  a  procurator  in  a  crowded  court,  consilio,  to  discover  whether 
he  were  circumcised." —  Sueton.  Domit.  12. 

^  See  Dio  Chrysostom,  quoted  in  note  31.  A  patrician  writer  who  was 
in  Rome  during  these  troubles  charges  the  death  of  Clemens  upon  Domi- 
tian. "That  ferocious  beast,  ...  as  if  shut  up  in  a  cave,  now  lapped 
the  blood  of  relatives,  now  issued  forth  to  the  destruction  and  slaughter 
of  the  most  renowned  citizens."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  Pancgijr.  48,  3.  With 
this  should  be  conpared  a  passage  by  the  same  writer,  which  implies, 
apparently,  that  Clemens  and  Domitian  were  on  good  terms.  "  Imperial 
praises  were  celebrated  at  the  same  time  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  theatre, 
by  the  actor  and  by  the  consul."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  Panegyr.  54,  l.  The 
term  "consul,"  rather  than  "the  consuls"  or  "one  of  the  consuls,"  can 
scarcely  have  meant  another  than  C'lemens ;  the  theatre  had  probably, 
since  Caligula's  time,  been  an  organ  of  the  popular  party.  Pliny  assumes, 
apparently,  that  what  it  or  the  popular  party  praised  ought  to  receive 
condemnation  in  the  Senate. 


282  JUDAISM    AT   KOME.  [CH.  X, 

suppose  that  Domitian,  after  returning  from  the  war,  pun- 
ished the  aristocracy,  putting  some  of  them  to  death  and 
driving  others  into  exile.^*  Independently  of  any  action 
by  himself,  the  relatives  of  those  murdered  by  the  Senate 
were  likely  enough  to  prosecute  the  murderers,  and  a  large 
share  of  the  convictions  may  have  been  due  to  them  rather 
than  directly  to  Domitian. 

To  accept  the  foregoing  is  to  attribute  falsehood,  or 
very  ambiguous  language,  to  Pliny,  Jun.,  an  objection  by 
no  means  insuperable.^^ 

If  we  accept  patrician  accounts  they  admit  but  two 
plausible  explanations :  firstly,  Domitian,  who  seems  to 
have  executed  the  laws  rigidly,  whether  they  favored  him- 
self or  his  opponents,  may  have  executed  laws  against 
foreign  rites,  or  Jewish  observances,  so  as  to  foreclose 
ground  of  complaint  to  his  patrician  enemies,  M'lien  he 
executed  other  laws  against  themselves  ;  or,  secondly,  we 
may  suppose  that  the  occasional  application  to  Domitian 
of  the  term  "  God  "  caused  in  some  way  trouble  between 
him  and  the  monotheists.  Either  of  the  two  explanations 
is  at  best  merely  plausible,  and  would  hardly  account  for 
the  death  of  his  cousin  Clemens,  to  whom  he  must  largely 
have  intrusted  matters  when  going  to  the  war. 

^  "Neither  did  flit;ht  and  havoc  follow  your  salutations  [on  arrival, 
0  Trajan]."  —  Pliny,  Jun.,  Pancgyr.  48,  .3.  This  seems  to  imply  that 
Domitian's  salutations  on  returning  from  the  war  were  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  proceedings  against  the  conspirators. 

^  Pliny's  Panegyric  was  a  political  tract.  Among  its  ohjects  the  fol- 
lowing may  be  included :  Misrepresentation  of  the  popular  party  and 
monotheists,  with  some  taunts  of  trium[)h  over  the  former  ;  laudation  of 
patricianism,  including  its  faults  ;  flattery  of  Trajan,  that  he  might  be 
swayed  towards  patricianism.  The  Panegyric  (11,  l)  represents  Tiberius 
as  having  deified  Augustus,  and  {Ibid.)  Domitian  as  having  deified  Titus. 
The  former  can  scarcely  be  an  error  ;  it  must  be  a  falsehood.  The  lat- 
ter (see  note  14)  is  contradicted  by  himself.  If  he  chai-ged  on  Domitian 
patrician  crimes  committed  against  him,  he  but  imitated  the  dealing  of  his 
intimate  friend  Tacitus  with  Tiberius.  (See  Appendix,  Note  G,  foot-note 
122.)  Such  falsehoods  must  have  been  dangerous  to  contradict  if  they 
could  be  uttered  while  witnesses  of  their  falsity  were  alive  ;  yet  the  same 
thing  happened  unquestionably  in  Caligula's  time  ;  see  Note  G,  foot-iioto 
114. 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.   81-96.  283 

I  suspect  the  expulsion  of  Stoics  or  jjhilosophers  to  be 
a  misnomer  for  the  expulsion  of  some  patrician  conspira- 
tors, with  or  without  one  non-patrician  Stoic.^^  In  the 
former  probably  the  proportion  of  patricianism  to  phi- 
losophy was  as  a  hundred  to  one.^''     Plutarch,  though  he 

^  Epictetus  was  a  freeduian  of  Epaj)liroditus,  whose  case  can  be  better 
understood  after  a  few  words  concerning  the  latter.  Epaphroditus  had 
been  a  libellis,  secretary,  or  librarian,  or  master  of  requests,  for  Nero,  and 
subsequently  for  Doniitian.  (Sueton.  Nero,  49;  Doniit.  14.)  The  con- 
spirators had  perhaps  bought  him  over,  for  he  was  banished.  Subse- 
quently he  was  put  to  death,  though  whether  by  Domitian,  or  after  that 
emperor's  death  by  persons  anxious  to  get  rid  of  his  testimony,  may  admit 
que.stion.  Epictetus,  the  freedman  of  Epaphroditus,  if  he  had  not  pre- 
viously (juitted  Rome,  may,  because  of  his  connection  with  the  latter, 
have  left  the  city  or  been  banished.  His  somewhat  dogged  character,  and 
his  admiration  of  Helvidius  (Epictet.  Dissertat.  1,  2,  10 --i-.';  4,  1,  Hi; 
Higginson's  trauslat.  pp.  9,  10,  308),  might  easily  cause  suspicion,  though 
I  am  unaware  of  any  distinct  statement  that  he  was  banished. 

**"  "When  Arulenus  Rusticus  published  the  praises  of  Paitus  Thrasea, 
and  Herennius  Senecio  those  of  Priscus  Helvidius,  it  was  construed  into 
a  capital  crime  ;  and  the  rage  of  tyranny  was  let  loose  not  only  against 
the  autliors,  but  against  their  writings  ;  .  .  .  crowning  the  deed  by  the 
expulsion  of  the  ]irofessors  of  wisdom."  —  Tacitus,  y/(/r/c.  2,  Bohn's 
trans. 

According  to  Dio  Cassius,  Domitian  "put  to  death  Rusticus  Arulenus 
because  [?]  ho  philosophized,  and  because  he  called  Thrasea  a  sacred 
MAN  ;  also  Herennius  Senecio,  because  [?]  in  a  long  life,  subsequent  to 
his  quaestorship,  he  had  offered  himself  for  no  office,  and  because  HE 
WROTE  THE  LIFE  OF  Helvidius  Priscus.  Not  a  few  others  were  put 
to  death  on  this  same  charge  of  philosophy  [?],  and  all  the  others  were 
again  driven  from  Rome."  —  Dio  Cass.  67,  13.  The  expression  "again" 
maj'  refer  to  the  earlier  expulsion  under  Vespasian,  though  the  Chronicon  of 
Eusebius,  misled  perhaps  by  it,  mentions  a  prior  expulsion  under  Domi- 
tian. 

One  of  the  expelled  "philosophers"  was  Artemidorus.  Pliny,  then 
pretor,  was  on  a  visit  to  him  at  his  suburban  residence,  when  the  order 
for  expulsion  reached  him,  and  lent  him  money  to  pay  debts,  or  a  debt, 
contracted  for  the  noblest  objects,  ex  jmlchen-hmis  cmisis  [to  aid  con- 
spiracy?], and  this  "when  certain  great  and  wealthy  friends  hesitated 
to  do  so."  — Pliny,  Epist.  3,  11.  This  visit  was  at  the  date  q^ium  esscnt 
philosophi  ah  urbe  submoli,  "  when  [the  ?]  philosophers  were  driven  from 


284  JUDAISM   AT  KOME.  [CH.  X. 

numbered  Eusticiis  among  his  hearers,  seems  not  to  liave 
been  molested. 

The  subjoined  passages  of  Tacitus  and  Pliny  may  aid 
in  fixing  the  date  and  character  of  proceedings  by  Domi- 
tian  or  others  against  senators.^^  Elsewhere  we  can 
find  the  views  and  temper  of  the  parties.^^     The  popular 

the  city."  —  Ibid.  On  their  iiuniljev  see  note  38.  Aiteniidorus  was  a 
son-in-law  of  the  Mnsonius  mentioned  in  Ch.  III.  notes  45  and  75. 

The  Helvidius  Priscus  mentioned  above,  and  his  father-in-law  Tlirasca 
PiEtus,  used  on  the  birthdaj's  of  Brutus  and  Cassius  (Juvenal,  Satire,  5, 
33,  37)  to  crown  their  heads  with  w'reaths  whilst  drinking  their  wine,  and, 
when  Vesimsian  came  as  emperor  to  Piome,  Helvidius  alone  addressed 
him  as  a  private  individual.  The  widow  of  this  Helvidius,  Jiamed  Fan- 
nia,  was  still  alive,  and,  at  her  request,  Herennius  Senecio,  a  patrician, 
■wrote  her  husband's  life,  for  which  she  supplied  materials.  Wliether  the 
writings  of  Helvidius  openly  advocated  assassination  we  are  not  told. 
They  probably  leaued  unmistakabl}'  in  that  direction,  for  the  Senate  felt 
compelled  to  order  their  suppression.  Fannia  succeeded,  however,  in 
preserving  copies  of  them,  and  carrying  them  with  her  into  exile.  See 
Pliny,  Ejiist.  7,  10. 

^  Pliny  {Epist.  3,  ll),  speaking  of  his  visit  to  Artemidorus,  says  that 
at  that  date  three  of  his  personal  friends,  Senecio,  P»usticus,and  Helvidius, 
had  been  put  to  death  ;  four  others,  Mauricus,  Gratilla,  Arria,  and  Fannia, 
had  been  banished.  From  this  it  appears  that  no  simultaneous  banish- 
ment by  Domitian  took  ]>lace,  but  that  more  or  less  time  must  have  been 
devoted  to  examination  of  the  individual  cases. 

Pliny's  statement  enables  us  to  interpret  moderateh',  or  else  as  an  effort 
at  disguising  patrician  crime,  the  language  of  Tacitus:  "  Agricola  did 
not  behold  the  senate-house  besieged,  and  the  Senate  enclosed  by  a  circle 
of  arms  ;  and  in  one  havoc  the  massacre  [by  jiatrician  conspirators  ?]  of  so 
many  consular  men,  the  flight  and  banishment  of  .so  many  honorable 
W'Omen.  .  .  .  Si'RsEQrENTLY  onox  our  own  hands  dragged  Helvidius  to 
prison  ;  ourselves  were  tortured  with  the  spectacle  of  Mauricus  and  Kus- 
ticus,  and  sprinkled  with  the  innocent  blood  of  Senecio."  ^Tacitus, 
Agric.  45,  Bohn's  trans,  altered.  If  the  first  massacre  refers  to  the  death, 
by  patrician  conspirac}',  of  Clemens  and  others  connected  with  the  po]>- 
ular  party,  then,  but  not  otherwise,  is  it  comprehensible  that  the  only 
friends  of  Pliny  should  have  been  those  subsequently  put  to  death. 

*^  Pliny  affirms  (Paiwjyr.  62,3):  Domitian  "hated  those  whom  we 
[senators]  loved,  and  we  [hated]  those  whom  he  loved."  "Nothing  was 
more  grateful  [when  you,  Trajan,  became  emperor],  nothing  more  worth)' 


§11.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  81 -£6.  285 

party  liad  during  Domitian's  reign  gained  one  victory  for 
liumanity.*'^  If  they  were,  as  alleged  by  Suetonius,  indif- 
ferent to  his  death,  they  had  probably  been  disappointed 
in  other  matters.*^    The  sacrifices  to  Domitian  were  prob- 

of  the  age  tlian  what  liappened  [that  we]  looked  down  at  the  prosecutors, 
their  faces  on  the  ground  and  their  necks  twisting.  We  recognized  and 
enjoyed  it."  —  Pliny,  Panegyr.  34,3,  4.  The  punishment  alluded  to 
consisted  in  fastening  a  man's  neck  by  a  forked  stake  to  the  ground,  and 
beating  him  in  a  state  of  nudity  with  a  rod.  In  the  next  section  is  men- 
tioned "a  fleet  of  prosecutors  committed  to  all  the  winds  and  compelled 
to  spread  its  sails  to  the  tempests."  —  Pliny,  Panegyr.  35,  l.  This  may 
mean  that  a  large  number  of  the  popular  jiarty,  instead  of  revenging  their 
murdered  or  banished  relatives  and  friends,  were  themselves  compelled  to 
fly.  Unless  it  have  this  meaning,  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend  that  one 
vessel  should  not  have  .sufficed  to  carry  all  prosecutors. 

On  the  assassination  of  Domitian  "the  Senate  was  so  overjoyed  that 
they  met  in  all  haste,  and  iu  a  full  assembly  reviled  his  memory  in  the 
most  bitter  terms  ;  ordering  ladders  to  be  brought  in,  and  his  shields  and 
images  to  be  pulled  down  before  tlieir  eyes,  and  dashed  in  pieces  upon  the 
floor  of  the  senate-house  ;  passing  at  the  same  time  a  decree  to  obliterate 
his  titles  everywhere,  and  abolish  all  memory  of  him."  —  Sueton.  Domit. 
23,  Bohn's  trans.  "  It  was  a  delight  to  beat  on  the  ground  the  proud 
countenances  [of  Domitian's  statues],  to  strike  them  with  iron,  to  rage 
against  them  with  axes,  ...  to  perceive  the  lacerated  members,  the 
broken  limbs,  and  lastly  the  savage  and  dreaded  images  cast  down  ard 
melted  in  the  flames."  —  Pliny,  Panegyr.  52,  4,  5.     Compare  note  27. 

*•'  Domitian  forbade  the  making  of  eunuchs.     See  Sueton.  Domit.  7. 

*i  "The  people  showed  little  concern  at  his  death,  but  the  soldiers 
were  roused  by  it  to  great  indignation,  and  immediately  endeavored  to 
have  him  ranked  among  the  gods.  They  were  also  ready  to  revenge  his 
loss,  if  there  had  been  any  to  take  the  lead.  However,  they  soon  after 
efll'ected  it,  by  resolutely  demanding  the  piinislmient  of  all  those  who 
had  been  concerned  in  his  assassination."  —  Sueton.  Domit.  23,  Bohn's 
trans. 

This  patrician  testimony,  as  to  popular  indifl'erence,  should  be  heard 
with  caution  or  distrust.  Pliny's  statement  {Panegyr.  52,  4),  that  the 
brazen  images  of  Domitian  remained  after  the  gold  and  silver  ones  had 
been  broken  or  melted,  may  imply  that  images  erected  by  the  common 
people  were  defended,  while  the  aristocracy  destroyed  what  they  them- 
selves had  set  up.  If  this  were  so,  however,  Pliny  nnist  have  wished  to 
conceal,  rather  than  convey,  the  information. 


286  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [cil.  X. 

ably,  as  in  Caligula's  case,  those  of  frightened  conspirators 
anxious  for  their  own  safety ^^  Proceedings  against  the 
Vestals  will  be  hereafter  mentioned. 


§  III.   A.  D.  96  -  98.     Mrva. 

Nerva,  who  succeeded  Domitian,  was  of  the  popular 
party,  as  his  grandfather  had  been.  He  and  Dio  Chry- 
sostom  were  personal  friends.*^  One  of  his  first  acts  was 
to  recall  nionotheists.^*  Even  if  Domitian  had  already 
issued,  as  before  mentioned,  a  similar  order,  the  murder  of 
that  emperor  might  cause  need  for  its  repetition  before 
monotheists  could  safely  trust  to  it.^^ 

Nerva's  age  and  infirmities  unfitted  him  to  master  the 
elements  of  violence  and  discord  wherewith  he  had  to 
contend,  and  he  selected,  voluntarily  or  otherwise,  Trajan 
as  his  associate  and  successor. 

§  IV.  Position  of  Things  about  the  Close  of  the  First  Century. 

The  present  section  is  devoted  to  some  subjects  which 
cannot  be  satisfactorily  grouped  in  a  chronological  nar- 
rative. 

1.  Of  SENATORIAL  FAMILIES  known  to  US  in  the  reigns 
of  Augustus  and  Tiberius,  not  a  name,  I  believe,  reappears 
among  senators  under  Trajan.  If  I  am  correct  in  this, 
the  fact  claims  reflection.  Sixty-one  years  only  had 
elapsed  between  the  deaths  of  Tiberius  and  Nerva.   Yet  in 

*2  Pliny  mentions  the  streets  {Panegyr.  52,  7)  as  blocked  by  victims. 
Streets  were  very  narrow,  and  Pliny's  language  perhaps  extravagant. 

*3  See  note  31. 

**  "  Nerva  dismissed  those  condemned  for  unbelief,  and  brought  back 
such  as  had  fled  [because  of  this  charge],  and  .  .  .  did  not  permit  any  to 
be  accused  of  unbelief  or  of  Jewish  life."  — Dio  Cass.  68,  1. 

*5  A  change  which  the  aristocracy  had  effected  by  a  murder,  over  which 
they  were  especially  jubilant,  might  well  create  apprehension  of  some  re- 
vulsion in  favor  of  old  ideas.  Even  the  humane  prohibition  of  Domitian 
against  making  eunuchs  had  to  be  re-enacted  (Dio  Cass.  68, -2)  by  Nerva, 
—  an  evidence  that  with  Domitian's  death  it  was  supposed  to  have  become 
either  inoperative  or  not  likely  to  be  executed. 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  287 

that  period,  scarcely  a  lifetime,  Rome's  senatorial  families 
had  perished,  largely  no  doubt  by  vice  or  violence,  and  been 
replaced  by  others  no  better  than  themselves.  Even  in 
our  own  country,  where  transition  from  public  to  private 
life  is  easy,  some  names  known  to  political  history  a  cen- 
tury ago  are  found  in  it  to-day.  In  portions  of  Europe 
class  privilege  keeps  the  same  names  in  public  life  for  a 
much  longer  period. 

2.  The  corruption  of  the  judiciary  is  in  several  ways 
manifest.*^  Patrician  influence  on  courts  must  have  been 
baneful.  The  wealth  and  political  power  of  the  aris- 
tocracy enabled  them  to  pervert  the  administration  of 
justice.  Their  willingness  thus  to  misuse  wealth  and 
power  is  illustrated  by  the  utter  absence  of  shame  where- 
with the  younger  Pliny  mentions  having  accepted  pay  for 
slaves  hired  to  influence  a  court.*'' 

3.  If  we  now  turn  to  a  subject  connected  with  the  de- 
cay of  heathenism,  namely,  the  extinction  of  oracles, 
we  shall  find  heathens  forced  to  a  position  respecting 
it,  which  could  not  but  strengthen  monotheists.  In  a 
dialogue  left  us  by  Lamprias,*^  a  relative  of  Plutarch,  one 

*s  Compare  notes  18,  19. 

*^  "  Yesterday,  two  of  my  slaves  .  .  .  were  hired  at  three  denarii  to 
applaud.  ...  At  this  price  any  quantity  of  seats  are  filled,  a  large  crowd 
is  gathered,  infinite  outbreaks  of  applause  are  effected  at  a  signal  from 
the  leader.  .  .  .  You  may  know  that  the  worst  speaker  will  be  most  ap- 
plauded." —  Pliny  Jun.,  Epist.  2,  14,  §§  6,  8.  This  was  of  course  writ- 
ten when  Pliny  was  somewhat  disgusted  with  the  court.     Cp.  note  105. 

*^  This  document,  entitled  "  Dc  Oraculorum  Dcfcctu,"  is  usually  or 
always  quoted  as  Plutarch's,  for  no  other  reason,  perhaps,  than  that  it  is 
published  among  his  works.  It  claims,  however,  to  be  written  by  Lam- 
prias,  and  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  its  claim.  The  writer  (c.  8, 
Plutarch,  0pp.  7,  p.  628,  edit.  Reiske)  makes  a  speaker  address  him  as 
Lamprias,  and  states  (c.  38,  Plutarch,  Oppi.  7,  p.  695,  edit.  Reiske)  that 
when  he  had  finished  some  remarks,  a  Demetrius,  who  was  present,  sub- 
joined, "Lamprias  gives  us  good  counsel."  A  little  further  on  (c.  38, 
Plutarch,  0pp.  7,  p.  697,  edit.  Reiske)  he  is  addressed  by  the  same  speaker 
as  Lamprias.  Compare  the  recurrence  twice  of  the  name  in  c.  46,  Plu- 
tarch, 0pp.  7,  pp.  711,  714. 

Plutarch  had  a  grandfather,  a  brother,  and,  according  to  Suidas,  a  son 


288  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  X. 

speaker,  Cleombrotus,  takes  ground  that  the  oracles  pro- 
ceeded from  perishable  and  evil  beings,  half-way  between 
divine  and  human,  called  demons.*^  This  was  precisely 
the  view  of  Jews  and  Christians.  One  of  his  hearers  ad- 
mits a  willingness  to  receive  the  view  in  part,  namely, 
that  tliere  exists  an  intermediate  race  of  beings  between 
gods  and  men,  but  hesitates  to  assume  that  they  are  evil. 
His  remarks,  with  the  answer  of  Cleombrotus,  are  ap- 
pended below.^*^ 


named  Lamprias.  In  determining  which  was  author  of  the  work,  it  de- 
serves note  that  he  speaks  of  himself  (47,  0pp.  7,  p.  715)  as  yet  a  young 
man,  though  not  so  young  but  that  (38,  0pp.  7,  p.  (597)  he  had  al- 
ready discussed  the  same  question  in  public.  Further,  one  of  the  chief 
speakers  in  the  present  dialogue,  as  we  are  told  at  its  commencement,  is 
a  native  of  Tarsus  named  Demetrius,  a  grammarian,  on  his  return  from 
a  visit  to  Britain.  Such  a  visit  was  not  likely  to  be  made,  nor  yet  to  be 
represented  in  a  fiction  as  made,  before  the  latter  half  of  the  first  cen- 
tury, when  Plutarch's  brother  or  son  might  have  been  young,  but  when 
his  grandfather  must  have  been  in  extreme  old  age  or  dead.  This  date 
for  the  document  is  confirmed  by  facts  mentioned  at  the  close  of  foot- 
note 51.  The  work,  therefore,  is  probably  by  his  brother  or  son.  In 
Smith's  Diet,  of  Biorj.  the  article  Lamprias  understands  the  above  passages, 
or  some  of  them,  as  referring  to  Plutarch's  grandfather,  but  on  what 
ground  it  does  not  state. 

49  it.  They  appear  to  me  to  solve  more  and  greater  difficulties,  who  dis- 
cover the  race  of  demons  half-way  between  gods  and  men."  —  De  Defect. 
Orac.  10;  Plutarch,  0pp.  7,  p.  633.  "As  regards  keeping  feasts  and 
sacrifices,  and  unlucky  or  ill-omened  days  in  which  meat  is  eaten  raw  and 
pulled  to  pieces,  [or  as  regards]  fastings  and  wailings,  and  often  also  FOUL 
LANGU.A.GE  IN  SECliET  OBSERVANCES  and  other  crazy  behavior,  agitation 
[of  body],  neck  twisting  and  contortions,  I  should  say  that  such  pro])i- 
tiation  and  exhortation  was  not  addressed  to  iiny  god,  but  [intended]  to 
ward  olT  some  evil  demon."  — De  Defect.  Orac.  14  ;  Plutarch,  0pp.  7, 
pp.  642,  643. 

50  "  Heracleon  remarked  :  It  does  not  apjioar  to  me  badly  laid  down 
that  oracles  are  presided  over,  not  by  gods,  who  cannot  appropriately  he 
CONCERNED  with  earthly  matters,  but  by  demons,  servants  of  the  gods. 
But  that  any  one,  taking  almost  by  a  stretch  from  the  words  of  Enipedo- 
cles,  should  attribute  to  these  demons  sins  and  bewildennents  and  di- 
vinely occasioned  wanderings,  and  should  represent  them  as  perishable 


§rv.]  POSITION  AT  CLOSE  OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  289 

In  the  immediately  following  portion  of  the  dialogue, 
a  narrative  is  introduced  by  Cleombrotus  to  support  the 
position  that  demons  are  perishable.^^  The  narrative  must 
have  had  some  currency  at  the  time,  or  it  would  hardly 
have  been  adduced  as  evidence.  Its  chief  interest  is  its 
additional  testimony  to  a  growing  disbelief  among  all 

and  mortal  like  a  man,  is,  in  my  opinion,  somewhat  bold  and  barbaric 
[that  is,  Jewish]. 

"  Cleombrotus  thereupon  asked  Philip  who  and  whence  the  young  man 
was,  and  having  learned  his  name  and  city,  replied  :  It  did  not  escape 
ourselves,  0  Heracleon,  that  we  were  getting  into  [apparently]  absurd 
teachings  ;  but  in  dealing  with  grand  subjects  we  cannot  avoid  laying 
down  grand  starting-points,  if  we  are  to  attain  tenable  results  [or,  more 
literally,  "probability  in  our  opinions"].  You  do  not  perceive  that  you 
withdraw  what  you  concede.  For  you  confess  that  there  are  demons  ; 
but  by  regarding  them  as  neither  wicked  nor  perishable,  you  no  longer 
make  them  demons.  For  in  what  do  they  differ  from  the  gods,  if  they 
have  a  nature  [or  substance,  ovaiaif]  which  is  imperishable,  and  a  charac- 
ter [or  natural  endowment,  dper??!']  incapable  of  suffering  or  sin."  —  De 
Defect.  Orac.  16  ;  Plutarch,  Oj^p.  7,  pp.  648,  649. 

^1  According  to  Cleombrotus,  one  of  his  fellow-citizens  named  Epi- 
therses  had  a  son  named  ^milianus,  a  rhetoiieian,  whom  some  of  those 
present  at  the  colloquy  had  heard.  This  jEmilianus  narrated  to  Cle- 
ombrotus that  while  yet  a  young  man  he  made  a  voyage  to  Italy ;  that 
when  opposite  the  island  or  islands  called  Paxi,  whilst  nearly  all  the 
passengers  were  awake  and  some  of  them  yet  at  table,  a  voice  from  the 
island  called  by  name  on  Thamus.  This  was  an  Egyptian  pilot,  known 
to  but  few  of  the  passengers.  The  voice  asked  him,  that  when  arrived 
at  Palodes,  he  should  announce  that  the  great  Pan  was  dead.  He  did 
so,  and  a  loud  lamentation  was  immediately  heard  from,  as  seems  implied 
in  the  narrative,  invisible  beings.  The  news  reached  Tiberius,  who  ques- 
tioned Thamus  and  attached  such  credit  to  the  story  as  to  make  thoiougli 
inquiry  about  Pan.  The  scholars,  who  surrounded  Tiberius,  regarded  tlie 
deceased  being  as  the  son  of  Mercury  and  Penelope. 

Philip,  one  of  the  speakers  in  the  dialogue,  knew  other  witnesses  to 
the  narrative  who  had  heard  it  from  /Eniilianus  when  he  was  an  old  man. 
See  c.  17,  Plutarch,  02ip.  7,  pp.  6.'J0-652.  It  will  be  noticed  as  bear- 
ing on  the  date  of  this  document  that  iEaiilianus  was  a  young  man  when 
Tiberius  was  emperor  (A.  D.  14-37),  that  he  was  an  old  man  when  he 
narrated  these  circumstances  to  persons  from  whom  Philip  had  subse- 
quently heard  them. 

13  s 


290  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  •  [CH.  X. 

classes  in  the  divine  nature  of  those  beincjs  whom  hea- 
thens  had  once  regarded  as  gods. 

The  question  as  to  why  these  once-celebrated  oracles 
had  died  out,  was  scarcely  new.  We  find  broached  more 
than  a  century  earlier,  in  Cicero's  writings,  the  analogous 
one,  why  the  oracle  at  Delphi  was  no  longer  able  to  pre- 
dict truly,  why  its  power  was  dying  out.  Cicero  puts  into 
his  brother's  mouth  an  answer  suited  to  Stoic  concep- 
tions.^2  But  the  ground  is  nowhere,  I  think,  taken  in 
Cicero  that  the  beings  whom  heathens  worshipped  were 
perishable  and  evil. 

The  explanation  which  Lamprias  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  a  Cynic,  concerning  the  cessation  of  oracles,^^  illus- 
trates the  absence  of  moral  influence  in  what  tlie  heathens 
called  religion.  He  himself,  after  the  way  had  been  pre- 
pared by  other  speakers,  takes  Stoic  ground  concerning 
one  supreme  being.^ 

4.  Another  item  connected  with  monotheistic  progress 
was  the  extra  efibrt  needed  to  keep  up  a  belief  in  omens. 

62  See  pp.  157,  158. 

^  At  the  outset  of  the  discussion  a  Cynic  named  Didymus,  who  was 
also  called  Planetiades,  exclaims  sarcastically,  "You  bring  us  a  matter 
hard  to  be  determined  and  calling  for  much  inquiry.  ...  I  propose  on 
the  contrary  that  you  puzzle  over  [the  question]  why  [the  god]  did  not 
long  ago  renounce  [answering],  or  why  Hercules,  or  some  other  god,  did 
not  steal  away  his  tripod,  heaped  with  shameful  and  godless  {aOit^v)  ques- 
tions, sometimes  proposed  by  persons  [unbelievers  ?]  who  wish  to  test  his 
logical  powers,  at  other  times  by  persons  [believers]  persistently  iminir- 
ing  about  treasures  or  inheritances  or  lawless  marriages."  —  De  Defect. 
Orac.  7 ;  Plutarch,  0pp.  7,  pp.  626,  627. 

^  Lamprias  refers  to  the  Stoic  interrogatories  concerning  one  immortal 
deity  cnlled  Foreknowledge  or  Fate,  instead  of  many  Jupiters  or  Joves, 
and  then  continues:  "What  necessity  is  there  that  many  Jupiters  .should 
exist,  even  if  there  be  several  [successive  ?]  worlds,  and  that  there  should 
not  be  over  each  a  chief  ruler  and  divine  director  of  the  whole,  having 
both  intelligence  and  reason,  such  as  among  us  [Stoics]  is  called  Lord  of 
all  things  and  Father  ?  Or  what  shall  ])rohibit  all  from  being  siibordi- 
nate  to  the  fete  and  forelcn  owl  edge  of  Jupiter,  and  that  he  should  in  part 
oversee  and  direct"  ? —De  Defect.  Orac.  29  ;  Plutarch,  0pp.  7,  jip.  678, 
679.     On  the  tei-m  "  Father,"  see  pp.  52,  53. 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY,  291 

There  would  seem,  to  one  unacquainted  with  ancient  liis- 
toiy,  no  reason  why  the  Jews,  or  early  Christians,  should 
as  a  body  have  opposed  attention  to  omens,  or  why  con- 
servative heathens  should  have  upheld  it.  But,  liad 
omens  been  done  away,  nothing  would  have  been  left  of 
the  heathen  religion.  Monotheists  attacked  the  study 
of  omens,  because  it  was  an  attention  to  evil  beings,  tlie 
enemies  of  God.^^  Heathen  conservatives  upheld  this 
study  because  of  its  supposed  connection  with  their  own 
privileges.  Nearly  half  a  century  before  the  Christian 
era,  when  the  battle  between  the  contending  parties  had 
made  less  progress,  Cicero,  though  a  conservative,  could, 
during  popular  ascendency,  ridicule  attention  to  omens  ;^^ 
but,  at  the  present  period,  we  iind  Tacitus  and  Suetonius 
carefully  incorporating  a  record  of  them  into  their  works. 
Tacitus  jjlaces  them  under  the  respective  years  in  his 
Annals.  Suetonius  places  them  at  the  beginning  and  end 
of  his  biographies.  A  century  later,  Dio  Cassius  kept  up 
the  hopeless  effort  to  make  history  subserve  a  belief  in 
©mens. 

0.  The  PUBLIC  GAMES  had,  since  the  days  of  Augustus, 
been  chiefly  fostered  in  times  of  aristocratic  ascendency ,^^ 

*^  Compare  pp.  37  -  40. 

s**  "Among  us,  omens  on  the  left  are  deemed  favorable;  among  Greeks 
and  barbarians,  those  on  the  right.  ...  We  established  the  left  hand, 
they  the  right,  because  in  most  cases  it  had  appeared  to  be  [the]  more 
auspicious.  What  a  discord  is  this  ?  What  [a  further  discord  that]  they 
use  [for  divination]  different  birds,  and  different  omens,  that  their  [method 
of]  observation  is  different,  and  their  answers  [based  on  the  same  events] 
are  different."  — Cicero,  Be  Divinat.  2  (39),  S2,  8.3.  The  oi'en  utter- 
ance of  this  in  the  days  of  Trajan  would  probably  liave  placed  the  speaker 
in  antagonism  to  the  aristocracy.  At  a  still  later  day  some  heathens 
wished  to  burn  his  works;  see  Ch.  V.  note  64 . 

^"  Even  before  the  time  of  Augustus  it  is  probable  that,  with  few  excep- 
tions, those  heathens,  who  were  most  allied  with  monotheism,  discouraged 
these  games.  Thus,  when  Cicero's  brother  succeeded  to  Flaccus  in  Asia 
Minor,  he  promptly  put  an  end  to  any  such  exhibitions  at  the  public 
expen.se,  as  we  learn  from  Cicero's  letter  to  him,  quoted  on  p.  72,  note  2. 
Cicero  .speaks  of  their  cost.  His  brother  may  have  been  equally,  or  more, 
actuated  by  their  immoral  tendencies. 


292  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

and  seem  to  have  become  conformed  to  the  tastes  of  the 
more  reckless,^^  so  that  some,  even  of  aristocratic  tenden- 
cies, if  their  self-respect  was  not  drowned  by  party  bigotry, 
or  silenced  by  dominant  sentiment,  manifested  repugnance 
towards  them.^^      Conservatives  had  created  a  partisan 

^  Augustus,  though  he  had  a  degrading  fondness  (see  Suetonius,  Au- 
gustus, 45)  for  witnessing  even  the  fisticuffs  of  street  rowdies,  j'et  (see 
Suetonius,  Augustus,  44)  forbade  women  to  be  present  at  exhibitions  of 
"athletes,"  which,  probably,  included  wrestling,  boxing,  and  racing,  while 
in  gladiatorial  fights  he  restricted  them  to  distant  benches  of  the  thea- 
tre, apart  from  the  men.  The  brutality  of  these  spectacles  had,  in  times 
of  patrician  donunance,  become  more  fearful.  According  to  Dio  Cassius 
(68,  ].">),  the  games,  after  Trajan's  victory  over  the  Dacians,  lasted  one 
hundred  and  twenty-three  days.  Eleven  thousand  animals,  wild  and 
domestic,  were  killed  in  them,  and  ten  thousand  men  were  compelled  to 
fight  duels.  AVe  may  fairly  infer  that  most  of  these  were  killed,  since, 
otherwise,  five  hundred  of  them  would  have  been  sufficient  to  keep  up 
a  continuous  fight.  Had  these  men,  mostly  no  doubt  captives,  been 
murdered  in  cold  blood  when  they  surrendered,  the  inhumanity  would 
have  been  sufficiently  unusual  to  have  shocked  mankind.  The  method 
of  their  murder  was  even  more  inhuman  than  such  a  supposed  massacre. 
But  custom  and  party  bigotry  had  destroyed  moral  vision,  so  that  only 
exceptional  individuals  in  the  conservative  party  uttered  their  voice,  or 
their  M'hisper,  on  the  subject.  The  statement  of  the  Apocalypse 
(18,  24)  concerning  Rome,  "In  her  was  found  the  blood  ...  of  all  who 
have  been  slaughtered  on  earth,"  seems  but  a  strong  figure;  nor  is  it  to 
be  wondered  at  if  many  shared  the  feeling  in  another  of  its  passages 
(18,  6),  "Eepay  her  as  she  repaid  others;  yes,  give  her  twice  twofold  of 
her  own  doings."  What,  too,  must  have  been  the  industrial  state  of  a 
community  which  coxild  absent  itself  from  labor  during  one  third  of 
a  year  at  these  butcheries  ! 

^3  The  younger  Pliny  writes  that  he  had  been  called  by  Trajan  into 
a  counsel  for  adjudicating  on  the  following  question:  "Among  the 
Viennese  [inhabitants  of  Vienne  near  Lyons  in  France]  a  gymnastic 
contest  was  regularly  celebrated  at  the  expense  of  some  one's  beipiest. 
Trebonius  Rufinns,  an  excelhmt  man,  a  friend  of  ours,  took  care  during 
his  duumvirate  to  do  away  and  abolish  it.  His  authority  as  a  ]>ublic 
officer  to  do  this  was  denied.  He  plead  his  own  cause  not  less  skilfully 
than  learnedly.  A  conmiendation  of  his  action  was,  that  he  spoke  de- 
liberately and  gravely  in  regard  to  his  business,  as  if  he  were  A  Roman 
and  A  GOOD  citizen.    "When  the  opinions  of  each  in  rotation  were  asked, 


§iv.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  293 

feeling  in  favor  of  these  brutalities,  by  which  the  better 
members  of  their  own  body  were  silenced.  Nerva's  pro- 
hibition of  them  may  have  pleased  more  than  tiie  mono- 
theists  and  their  friends.^*^ 

6.  On  the  subject  of  social  gatherings  and  suppers, 
the  reader  should  weigh  well  the  testimony  of  Pliny  in 
Ch.  II.  note  25,  and  in  the  extract  below,^^  concerning 

Junius  Mauricus,  than  whom  nothing  is  more  firm  or  truthful,  said  tliat 
'the  contest  ought  not  to  be  restored  to  the  Viennese.'  He  added,  'I  wish 
that  it  could  be  done  away  at  Rome.'  ...  It  was  decided  that  the  con- 
test be  done  away,  which  had  infected  the  morals  of  the  Viennese  as  has 
ours  of  all  mankind.  For  the  vices  of  the  Viennese  are  couruicd  to 
themselves.  Ours  spread  [in  every  direction]  widely." — Plixiy,  Juii. 
Einst.  4,  22.  It  is  apparent  that  Rufinus  must  have  been  an  independent 
man.  Pliny's  statement  implies  this,  and  suggests  moreover  the  follow- 
ing considerations.  Rufinus  commends  his  cause  by  speaking  as  "a 
Roman"  and  "a  good  citizen."  Did  he  skilfully  ignore  monotheistic 
reasoning  or  un -aristocratic  leanings?  He  spoke  "deliberately  and 
gravely."  Did  monotheists  and  their  allies,  or  did  the  excitable  por- 
tion of  them,  substitute,  too  frequently,  ill-considered  denunciations  for 
argument?     Compare  Paul's  advice  in  Ch.  Vlll.  note  159. 

Pliny  must  have  feared  lest  Mauricus  should,  because  of  his  utterance, 
be  regarded  as  untrue  to  the  patricians,  for  he  inserts  in  his  letter  a 
remark  of  opposite  tendencj^  made  by  him  at  Nerva's  table,  attributing 
to  that  emperor  undue  leniency  towards  enemies  of  the  Senate.  Pliny 
himself,  as  we  shall  find  in  the  course  of  this  section  (see  note  108),  held, 
when  external  support  was  lacking,  opposite  views  to  wliat  he  has  here 
expressed. 

Tacitus  speaks  of  the  German  women  as  "hedged  in  by  chastity; 
corrupted  by  no  seductive  public  games,  by  no  provocatives  at  private 
entertainments."  —  De  Moribus  German.  19.  He  preferred,  possibly,  to 
give  prominence  to  these  rather  than  to  monotheist  women. 

^  See  note  22,  of  Ch.  V.  If  we  compare  a  quotation  (Ch.  V.  note  22) 
from  Dio  Cassius  with  the  reasons  which  Cicero,  in  note  57,  assigns  for 
his  brother's  abolition  of  public  games,  and  with  Pliny's  defence  of  his 
friend  Mauricus  in  note  59,  we  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion  that  con- 
servatives, who  saw  the  injurious  influences  of  these  games,  hesitated  to 
advocate  their  abolition  on  exclusively  moral  grounds,  lest  they  should 
be  regarded  as  untrue  to  the  state  religion  and  to  the  senatorial  party. 

®i  Pliny  has  left  us  a  letter  "to  his  [friend]  Genitor,"  the  same,  doubt- 
less, whom  he  elsewhere  addresses,  or  mentions,  as  "Julius  Genitor," 


294  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

their  character ;  and  tlie  testimony  of  Tacitus,  just  given 
in  note  59,  concerning  their  effects  on  women;  and  com- 
pare the  same  with  Pliny's  allegations  in  the  first-men- 
tioned note,  concerning  suppers  of  "  Foreign  Superstition." 
On  the  younger  class  of  men,  or  on  any  who  had  not  in- 
dependence enough  of  character  to  revolt  at  what  was 
debasing,  these  indecencies  at  entertainments  must  have 
been  corrupting.  Even  some,  who  disapproved,  would 
become  familiar  with,  and  hardened  to  them.  Human 
history  justifies  the  supposition,  that  opposition  to  the 
monotheists  may  have  been  among  the  supporting  mo- 
ti\"es  for  so  indefensible  a  custom.  Plutarch  wrote  more 
than  five  hundred  pages  of  Table  Conversations,  with  the 


and  whom  in  Book  3,  Epistle  3,  he  recommends  for  the  position  of  guar- 
dian and  instructor  as  "a  man  of  rectitude  and  gravity,  somewhat  un- 
attractive, even,  and  austere,  judged  by  prevailing  license."  The  general 
import  of  a  letter,  received  from  Geuitor,  can  be  judged  by  the  following 
from  Pliny's  answer :  "I  have  received  your  letters  in  which  you  complain 
that  a  most  magnificent  supper  was  repulsive  to  you,  because  buffoons, 
[indecent]  dancers,  and  fools  were  wandering  among  the  tables.  Will 
you  relax  somewhat  of  your  frown  ?  I  truly  have  [at  my  table]  nothing 
such.  Yet  I  bear  with  those  who  have.  Why  do  I  not  have  it  ?  Because, 
if  something  lascivious  is  introduced  by  a  dancer,  something  obscene  by 
a  buffoon,  or  something  foolish  by  a  fool,  it  by  no  means  delights  me  as 
unanticipated  or  joyous.  I  tell  you  not  my  judgment  but  my  taste. 
And,  on  this  account,  how  many  do  you  think  that  there  are,  whom  the 
very  things,  by  which  we  are  delighted  and  carried  away,  would  offend, 
in  some  cases  as  silly,  in  others  as  extremely  attected.  .  .  .  Let  us  grant, 
therefore,  indulgence  to  the  pleasures  of  others  that  we  may  obtain  it  for 
our  own."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  9,  17.  No  allegation  is  made  that  these  im- 
proprieties offended  Pliny's  moral  sense.  On  the  contrary,  he  gives  us  to 
understand  that  his  judgment  did  not  condemn  them.  It  was  in  his 
eyes  a  mere  matter  of  taste,  in  which  those  who  enjoyed  it  were  entitled 
to  their  predilections. 

Dio  Chrysostom  mentions  the  latter  part  of  the  feast  :  "  When  a  con- 
jurer enters,  or  a  clown,  or  some  other  such  person,  .  .  .  but  conversa- 
tion by  which  men  are  rendered  prosperous  and  better  and  more  temperate, 
and  better  fitted  for  civil  duties,  you  do  not  often  hear."  —  Dio  Chry- 
sostom, Oral.  32,  4. 


§iv.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  295 

intention,  apparently,  of  suggesting  means  for  amending 
the  evil.*^^ 

7.  Tlie  defects  of  fashionable  education  had  prob- 
ably not  abated  since  their  portrayal  in  the  De  Oratori- 
busP 

^'■^  Plutarch's  "  Table  Conversations  "  are  arranged  in  nine  books,  to 
accord,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  Preface  to  Book  9,  with  the  number  of  the 
muses.  Each  book  was  intended  to  contain  a  "  decade  "  of  conversations, 
but  he  seems  to  have  had  five  extra  subjects  which  he  put  into  the  last 
book.  The  latter  half  of  the  fourth  book  is  lost,  except  the  headings  of 
its  subjects,  which  Kaltwasser,  the  German  translator,  gives  —  I  know 
not  from  what  source  —  on  p.  279  of  Vol.  5.  The  following  extract  is 
from  the  Preface  to  Book  7 :  "  The  [prevalent]  frivolities  over  the  wine- 
cup  penetrate  the  silly  multitude  [even]  to  their  emotions,  and  pervert 
them,  so  that  it  is  no  less  desirable  to  select  approved  subjects  of  conver- 
sation than  approved  friends  for  one's  feasts  ;  [friends]  who  in  thought 
and  speech  shall  contravene  Lacedemonian  usage.  For  the  Lacedemo- 
nians, when  they  receive  a  young  man  or  a  guest  into  the  dining-hall,  re- 
mark, showing  him  the  folding  doors,  '  No  discourse  [here  uttered]  goes 
outside  of  this.'  But  from  us  [Plutarch  is  addressing  a  friend  and  com- 
panion at  meals],  who  have  jointly  accustomed  ourselves  to  use  the  same 
[class  of]  discourses,  there  is  exit  for  all  things  to  all  men,  because  the  sub- 
jects contain  nothing  intemperate,  nor  blasphemous,  nor  immoral,  nor  yet 
anything  slavish.  This  can  be  determined  from  the  examples  whereof  the 
present  book  contains  the  seventh  decade." — Flutarch,  Symposiacon, 
Preface  to  Book  7.  0pp.  Moral.  8,  p.  786 ;  Hutten's  edit.  11,  pp.  281, 
282. 

®^  The  De  Oratoribus  was  written  (c.  17)  in  A.  d.  75,  by  one  who  had 
already  reached  middle  life,  for  he  mentions  (c.  1),  "those  whom  I  heard, 
juvcnis  admodum,  in  early  manhood."  Tacitus,  to  whom  it  is  some- 
times erroneously  attributed,  was  (Pliny,  Epist.  7,  20)  of  the  same  age  as 
the  younger  Pliny,  who  must,  in  A.  D.  75,  have  been  but  fourteen  or  fif- 
teen years  old.     Pliny,  Epist.  6,  20. 

"  In  the  present  age  what  is  our  practice  ?  The  infant  is  committed  to 
a  Greek  chambermaid,  and  a  slave  or  two,  chosen  for  the  purpose,  gen- 
erally the  worst  of  the  whole  household  train,  and  unfit  for  any  office  of 
trust.  From  the  idle  tales  and  gross  absurdities  of  these  people,  the 
tender  and  uninstructed  mind  is  suffered  to  receive  its  earliest  impres- 
sions. Throughout  the  house  not  one  servant  cares  what  he  says  or  does 
in  the  presence  of  his  young  master  ;  and,  indeed,  how  should  it  be  other- 
wise ?  since  the  parents  themselves  are  so  far  from  training  their  young 


296  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

8.  If  we  now  turn  to  the  Vestal  Virgins,  we  find  that 
all,  or  nearly  all,  of  tliem  must  have  belonged  to  aristo- 
cratic society.^  A  change  like  this  since  the  days  of 
Augustus  and  Tiberius  "^  implies  some  powerful  agency 
at  work.  This  agency  cannot  have  been  an  increased  be- 
lief in  the  old  religion.  It  may  have  been,  and  in  all 
probability  was,  the  spirit  of  opposition  to  monotheism, 

families  to  virtue  and  modesty,  that  they  set  them  the  first  examples  of 
luxury  and  licentiousness.  Thus  our  youth  gradually  acquire  a  confirmed 
habit  of  impudence  [immodesty  ?],  and  a  total  disregard  of  that  reverence 
[respect  ?]  they  owe  both  to  themselves  and  to  others.  To  say  truth,  it 
seems  as  if  a  fondness  for  horses,  actors,  and  gladiators,  the  peculiar  and 
distinguishing  folly  of  this  our  city,  was  impressed  upon  them  even  in  the 
womb ;  and  when  once  a  passion  of  this  contemptible  sort  has  seized  and 
engaged  the  mind,  what  opening  is  there  left  for  the  noble  arts  ?  Who 
talks  of  anything  else  in  our  houses  ?  If  we  enter  the  schools,  what  other 
subjects  of  conversation  do  we  hear  among  the  boys  ?  The  preceptors 
themselves  choose  no  other  tojiic  more  frequently  to  entertain  their  hearers  ; 
for  it  is  not  by  establishing  a  strict  discipline,  or  by  giving  proofs  of  their 
genius,  that  this  order  of  men  gain  pupils,  but  by  fawning  and  flattery. 
Not  to  mention  how  ill-instructed  our  youth  are  in  the  verj'  elements  of 
literature,  sufficient  pains  are  by  no  means  taken  in  bringing  them  ac- 
quainted with  the  best  authors,  or  in  giving  them  a  proper  notion  of  his- 
tory, together  with  a  knowledge  of  men  and  things.  The  whole  that 
seems  to  be  considered  in  their  education  is,  to  find  out  a  person  for  them 
called  a  rhetorician.  I  will  presently  give  you  some  account  of  the  in- 
troduction of  this  profession  at  Eome,  and  show  you  with  what  contempt 
it  was  received  by  our  ancestors." — De  Oratoribus,  29,  Bohn's  trans. 
The  concluding  remark  betrays  a  conservative's  respect  for  antiquity. 

®*  Two  of  these  virgins  were  named  Ocellatse  (Sueton.  Domit.  8),  and 
must,  doubtless,  have  been  relatives  of  the  Emj)eror  Galba,  whom  the 
Senate  favored  for  his  position,  because  he  was  an  embodiment  of  their 
views  as  contrasted  with  popular  ideas.  Another,  named  Junia,  was  a 
relative  of  the  Fannia  (Pliny,  Jun.  7,  19,  l)  who  was  the  wife  of  Helvidius 
Priscus.  Licinianus,  the  paramour  of  another  named  Cornelia,  was  de- 
fended by  Herennius  Senecio,  a  leader  among  the  senators  (Pliny,  Jun. 
4,  11,  12,  13).  Cornelia,  moreover,  was  chief  Vestal,  and  would  hardly 
have  had  for  subordinates  the  members  of  patrician  families,  unless  she 
equalled  them,  at  least,  in  rank.  The  whole  number  of  Vestals  was  but 
six,  so  that  not  less  than  two  thirds  were  of  patrician  rank. 

^  Compare  remarks  on  pages  176,  190. 


§IT.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE    OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  297 

prompting  patricians,  in  spite  of  natural  affection,  to 
place  their  female  relatives  in  an  uncoveted,  and  morally 
dangerous  position,  as  a  means  of  maintaining  "  old  cus- 
toms." These  "  old  customs "  must,  one  would  think, 
have  given  strong  evidence  of  decline,  if  tiieir  defenders 
resorted  to  such  measures  for  their  support.  In  deter- 
mining the  moral  danger  and  moral  repulsiveness  of 
Vestal  duties,  we  must  remember  that  the  official  position 
of  these  girls  would  have  caused  it  to  be  noticed  as  a 
slight,  had  they  habitually  absented  themselves  from  the 
public  indecencies  and  brutalities  of  the  circus,  where 
special  seats  were  provided  for  them.  We  must  recollect, 
also,  that  their  ten  years'  novitiate  —  apart  from  pa- 
rental care  —  was  expected  to  begin  when  they  were  not 
yet  ten  years  old  ;  though  the  impracticability  of  prevent- 
ing the  older  members  from  dying  must,  one  would  think, 
have  occasionally  compelled  less  juvenile  selections. 
Three  were  convicted  of  unchastity  in  the  time  of  Domi- 
tian,  two  of  whom  confessed  themselves  guilty. 

9.  We  will  now  consider  some  views,  actions,  or  for- 
tunes of  Dio  Clirysostom,  Plutarch,  Tacitus,  and  Pliny, 
four  prominent  individuals  of  this  era. 

Dio  Chrysosto.m  was  born  in  the  strongly  monotheistic 
province  of  Bithynia,  in  Asia  Minor.  No  one  of  his  own 
time  seems  to  have  equalled  him  in  earnest  eloquence.^^ 
His  writings  bear  evidence  that  he  was  not  merely  exer- 
cising his  mental  faculties,  nor  aiming  at  literary  fame, 
but  that  his  feelings  were  warmly  enlisted  in  questions 

^^  The  article  in  Smith's  Dictionary  says :  "All  the  extant  orations  of 
Dion  are  distinguished  for  their  refined  and  elegant  style  ;  the  author 
most  successfully  imitated  the  classic  writers  of  Greece,  .  .  .  his  ardent 
study  of  these  models,  combined  with  his  own  eminent  talents,  his  fine 
and  pleasing  voice,  and  his  skill  in  extempore  speaking,  raised  him  at 
once  above  all  contemporary  rhetoricians.  His  style^  is  throughout  clear 
and,  generally  speaking,  free  from  artificial  embellishment,  though  he  is 
not  always  able  to  escape  from  the  influence  of  the  Asiatic  school  of 
rhetoric."  —  Smith,  Diet,  of  Biog.  Vol.  1,  p.  1031,  col.  2.  The  same 
article  quotes  Niebuhr's  opinion  (p.  1032,  col.  1),  that  he  was  the  first 
writer  after  [the  time  of]  Tiberius  that  greatly  contributed  towards  the 
revival  of  Greek  literature. 
13* 


298  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  X. 

connected  with  human  improvement.^"  A  man  of  wealth 
and,  at  home  certainly,  of  iniluence,  the  personal  friend, 
moreover,  of  Nerva  and  Trajan,  he  strove,  not  for  honors 
or  privileges,  but  for  the  physical  comfort  and  moral  well- 
being  of  his  fellows.  Outside  of  avowed  monotheists, 
no  writer  stood  so  close  as  he  to  monotheism.  This 
is  less  noticeable  in  his  occasional  leaning  to  the  idea 
of  one  Supreme  Deity ,^^  than  in  his  willingness  to  contra- 
dict heathen,  and  earnestly  defend  monotheistic,  views 
concerning  the  moral  character  necessary  in  a  divine 
being. ^^     He  was  the  friend,  apparently,  of  a  prominent 

^'  The  article  quoted  in  the  foregoing  note,  saj^s  (p.  1031,  col.  1)  that 
Dio's  chief  object  was  "  to  apply  the  doctrines  of  philosophy  to  the  pur- 
poses of  practical  life,  and  more  especially  to  the  administration  of  public 
affairs."  It  also  quotes  (p.  1032,  col.  1)  Niebuhr's  statement:  "He 
appears  in  all  he  wrote  as  a  man  of  amiable  character  and  free  from  the 
vanity  of  ordinary  rhetoricians,  though  one  perceives  the  silent  conscious- 
ness of  his  powers.  .  .  .  "Whenever  he  touches  upon  the  actual  state  of 
things  in  which  he  lived,  he  shows  his  master  mind."  For  "  silent  con- 
sciousness of  his  powers,"  in  this  statement  of  Niebuhr,  I  should  substi- 
tute "  deep  conviction  that  he  was  speaking  important  truth." 

^*  Dio,  in  one  of  his  discourses,  compares  a  city,  perpetually  ravaged 
by  its  rulers,  and  revolting  against  them,  with  one  "  ruled  in  keality, 
[that  is]  in  kindness  and  agreement,  according  to  that  law  which  the 
wisest  and  oldest  govei'nor  and  lawgiver,  the  director  of  the  whole  heaven 
and  the  ruler  of  all  which  exists,  has  ordained  for  mortals  and  immortals, 
he  himself  being  guided  (oUtus)  by  the  same  law,  and  exhibiting  an  ex- 
ample of  his  own  administration  ;  of  a  prosperous  and  happy  organiza- 
tion."—  Dio  Chrysostom,  Orat.  36,  12,  pp.  446,  447  ;  Reiske's  edit. 
Vol.  2,  p.  89.     The  subdivisions  exist  in  the  Vienna  edition. 

63  To  deny  that  a  divine  nature  could  be  irritable  and  peevish  might 
seem,  to  most  modem  readers,  harmless  enough.  But,  if  the  gods  were 
not  irritable,  there  was  no  need  of  pacifying  them  with  sacrifices,  or  of 
studying  by  various  contrivances  the  fluctuations  of  their  dispositions;  in 
other  words,  the  whole  heathen  religion  was  at  an  end.  Dio  Chrysostom 
asks  and  affirms  :  "  As  [in  judging  of]  a  man,  yet  rather  [in  judging  of] 
a  god,  or  the  gods,  debv,  ^  tou^  dio6i,  if  you  deem  them  illustrious,  do  you 
deem  them  not  just  and  sensible,  with  self-control,  and  possessing  the 
other  virtues,  but  unjust,  unreasonable,  and  [in  their  desires]  ungoverned? 
[You  answer,]  Not  I. 

"Therefore,  also,  as  regards  a  demon  [compare  note  50],  if  you  pro- 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIEST   CENTURY.  299 

Christian/*^  and  appealed  in  support  of  moral  teachings 
to  monotheistic  writings.'^^  In  consequence  of  this,  it 
probably  was,  that,  during  Pliny's  persecution  of  the 
Christians,  a  mob  attacked  and,  it  would  seem,  burned 
Dio's  house,  and  the  narrow-minded  partisanship  of  Pliny 
would  have  caused  him  a  yet  further  annoyance,  had  not 
Trajan  intervened. 

The  sources  of  the  preceding  information  are  two  ora- 
tions by  Dio,  a  letter  of  Pliny,  and  a  response  from  Trajan. 
Dio  had  been  engaged  in  erecting  some  public  buildings. 
Certain  porticos  or  colonnades  were  made  a  subject  of 
complaint.'^^     His  language  concerning  these  complaints 


nounce  one  to  be  illustrious,  [do]  you  [not]  manifestly  pronounce  it  to  be 
just,  useful,  and  sensible  ?  How  otherwise  [you  say]  ?  Or  as  regards  one 
whom  you  deem  low.  [Do]  you  [not]  decide  it  to  be  useless,  unjust,  and 
unreasonable  ?  Of  course.  What  then  !  Will  not  each  man  live  ac- 
cording to  [the  character  of]  his  [presiding]  demon,  whatever  that  may 
be  ?  Will  he  live  according  to  a  different  one  ?  By  no  means.  There- 
fore [do]  you  [not]  expect  a  man  who  has  an  illustrious  demon  to  live  just- 
ly, sensibly,  and  temperately ;  since  you  confess  his  demon  to  be  of  this 
character  ?  Assuredly.  And  him  [who  has  obtained]  a  worthless  demon 
[you  expect  to  live]  uselessly  and  foolishly,  unreasonably  and  without 
self-restraint  ?      These  things  follow  obviously  from  what  has  been  said. 

"  Now  then,  whatever  man,  having  understanding,  is  just  and  tem- 
perate he  is  evSaiixwv,  prosperous,  being  united  to  an  illustiious  demon. 
Whoever  is  riotous,  senseless,  and  a  doer  of  all  evil,  we  must  necessarily 
affirm  him  to  be  KaKodaif/.ova,  ill-starred,  yoked  to  and  serving  a  low  demon  ? 
Certainly."  —Dio  Chrysostom,  23,  3,  4,  Vol.  2,  pp.  277,  278  ;  Reiske's 
edit.  Vol.  1,  p.  515. 

The  term  "demon,"  in  the  foregoing,  seems  to  be  used  for  a  being  inter- 
mediate between  divine  and  human.  Dio  judged  all  beings  by  a  moral 
standard. 

■^^  See  in  note  31  of  this  chapter,  extract  from  Dio,  Oj-at.  13, 1. 

"^1  See  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  130. 

^'■^  This  appears  in  Oration  47, .".,  and  is  alluded  to,  apparently,  in  Ora- 
tion 46,  3.  The  consecutive  numbering  of  these  two  orations,  the  repe- 
tition of  this  same  subject  in  each,  the  allusion  in  the  former  to  an  attack 
on  his  house,  and  in  the  latter  to  its  destruction,  imply  that  the  orations 
are  of  about  the  same  date.  The  latter  of  the  two  orations  alludes  to 
Nero's  Golden  Palace.     This  was  burnt  in  A.  D.  104.     The  conflagration 


300  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  X. 

and  concerning  the  attack  on  his  house  is  not  only  free 
from  bitterness,  but  marked  in  some  passages  by  a  good 
spirit  which  it  woukl  be  difficult  to  match  in  heathen 
writers,  or  even  in  some  Christian  ones.'^     In  judging 

would  temporarily  excite  public  attention  and  render  an  allusion  to  the 
building  more  probable  at  that  time  than  at  any  other.  This  same  year, 
104,  or  the  preceding  one,  103,  is  assigned  by  Smith  {Diet,  of  Biog.,  art. 
Trajan,  Vol.  3,  p.  1167,  col.  2  ;  cp.  p.  422,  col.  1)  for  the  commence- 
ment of  an  eighteen  months,  or  two  years'  proconsulship  of  PUny  in 
Bitliynia ;  and  we  know  from  his  correspondence  with  Trajan,  that  Dio 
was  then  there,  and  had  been  engaged  in  public  building,  which  was  made 
a  subject  of  complaint.     Compare  note  76. 

''^  "  Learn  first,  that  stones  and  fire,  which  to  you  seem  fearful,  are  not 
so  in  reality.  Neither  by  such  weapons  are  you  powerful,  but  [on  the 
contrary  make  yourselves]  the  weakest  of  men.  .  .  .  The  strength  of  a 
city  and  of  a  people  consists  in  other  things,  and  firstly  in  thoughtful- 
ness  and  the  performance  of  justice.  .  .  .  Why  ...  are  you  angry  with 
ME  .  .  .  and  bring  stones  and  fire  against  us  ?  .  .  .  No  one  of  my  neigh- 
bors, whether  rich  or  poor,  — and  1  have  many  such  neighbors,  —  ever 
charged,  either  justly  or  unjustly,  that  he  had  been  robbed  of  anything, 
or  exiled  by  me.   .   .   . 

' '  What  is  that  which  I  am  able  and  unwilling  to  do,  to  save  you  from 
want  ?  Or  why  is  it  that  —  because  of  my  building  the  colonnades  at  the 
warm  springs  and  the  workshops  —  you  are  so  disposed  against  me  ?  This 
it  is,  some  say,  in  which  the  city  has  been  injured  by  me.  And  what 
man  did  ever  you,  or  any  one  else  [previously],  blame  for  building  up  his 
own  ground  and  home  ?     Is  wheat  dearer  for  [my  doing]  this  ?  .  .   . 

"I  would  not  have  warded  you  off  [they  had,  temporarily,  at  least, 
given  up  the  attack],  but  in  this  respect  it  will  be  safe  for  you  to  burn 
the  house.  It  will  be  sufficient  for  me,  taking  my  wife  and  child,  to 
depart.  And  let  no  one  suppose,  that  I  have  spoken  thus  from  anger 
on  my  own  account,  rather  than  from  fear  on  yours,  lest  you  be  reported 
as  violent  and  lawless.  For  of  what  takes  place  in  the  [diff"erent]  cities 
notliing  escapes  the  rulers,  I  mean  rulers  greater  than  those  here." 
—  Dio  Chrya.  Oration  46,  1,  2,  3,  4,  pp.  518  -  522  ;  Reiske's  edit.  Vol. 
2,  pp.  212-219. 

The  last  remark  may  mean  that  Trajan  would  be  less  indiff'erent  than 
Pliny  to  the  wrong  done. 

In  the  next  oration,  addressed  again  to  his  townspeople,  he  continues : 
"What,  therefore,  do  you  wish?  I  swear  to  you  by  all  the  gods,  that 
rather  than  vex  you,  or  any  of  you,  or  to  seem  burdensome,  I  would  not 


§  ly.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  301 

whether  his  difficulties  were  purely  local,  or  whether  the 
strife  between  monotheism  and  heathenism  had  prompted 
or  embittered  them,  two  things  seem  deserving  of  con- 
sideration. Dio  defends  himself  by  the  example  of  per- 
sons who  were  "  well  born  "  and  "  thorough  Greeks,"  "^ 
that  is,  who  were  conservative  heathens.'^  He  makes  a 
specific  head  of  the  charge  against  him  concerning  sepul- 
chres and  images,"^  and  Pliny  lays  stress  on  a  constructive 

choose  for  my  own  the  possessions  of  King  Darius  or  those  of  Crcesus,  or 
my  former  home,  which  was,  in  a  true  sense,  a  golden  one,  and  not 
merely  in  name,  like  that  w'hich  they  called  Nero's.  .  .  .  Advise  me,  as 
I  requested  [touching  the  colonnades],  since  with  a  wish  to  please  you  in 
every  way  I  am  at  a  loss.  For  now,  if  I  touch  the  undertaking,  and 
exert  myself  for  its  completion,  some  say  '  that  I  am  lording  it  [over 
them],  and  undermining  [or  else  ingulfing]  the  city  and  to,  iepa  travra, 
ALL  SACRED  THINGS,  for  it  is  manifest  that  1  burnt  the  temple  of  Jupiter, 
and  floated  the  images  away  from  the  mill,  and  that  they  are  now  lying 
in  the  most  public  part  of  the  city.'  If  I  do  nothing,  not  wishing  any 
one  to  grumble,  nor  [on  my  part]  to  quarrel  with  any  one,  you  all  cry  out, 
'Let  the  work  be  finished,  or  let  that  which  has  been  done  be  pulled 
down,'  as  if  casting  it  up  to  me  in  reproach.  What,  therefore,  do  you  wish 
me  to  do  ?  For  I  will  do  what  you  say."  —  Dio  Chrys.  Orat.  47,  o,  ?, 
pp.  526,  527,  528  ;  edit.  Reiske,  VoL  2,  pp.  227,  228,  231,  232.  The  fore- 
going allusion  by  Dio  to  his  former  home  gives  probability  to  the  sur- 
mise that  it  had  been  violently  destroyed.     It  evidently  no  longer  existed. 

'*  "I  wish  you  to  counsel  me  whether  I  shall  at  my  own  expense  tear 
down  W'hat  has  been  done,  and  make  everything  as  it  was  before.  .  .  . 
or  tell  me  what  .  .  .  [you  wish].  For  I  should  think,  whilst  seeing 
other  cities  zealous  for  such  [structures],  not  only  those  in  Asia,  Syria, 
and  Cilicia,  but  our  next  neighbors  of  Nicomedia,  Nicsea,  and  Csesarea, 
men  well  born  and  (T<p6dpa  "EWrjvas,  intensely  Greek,  inhabiting  a 
much  smaller  city  [less  able,  therefore,  to  bear  the  expense]  and  under 
separate  governments,  and  if  they  differ  about  other  things,  yet  of  one 
mind  about  such  [structures],  and  the  emperor  by  good  fortune  enjoining 
such,  because  he  wishes  in  every  way  that  your  city  should  be  increased 
(permit  me  to  read  his  epistle  .  .  .),  —  I  should  think  that  you  would 
have  the  same  structures  and  that  no  one  would  be  displeased  at  the 
city's  adornment."  — Dio  Chrys.  Oral.  47,  5,  p.  526,  Reiske's  edit. 
Vol.  2,  pp.  226,  227. 

•'S  See  Ch.  VII.  note  26. 

^^  "So  far  as  concerns  the  sepulchres  and  the  sacred  structures,  it  will 


302  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CII.  X. 

lack  of  regard  in  Dio  towards  the  heathen  religion.  This 
last  charge  needs  a  word  of  explanation.  There  was  in 
the  public  building  which  Dio  had  erected  a  library,  and 
in  this  library  an  image  of  Trajan.  If  Trajan  were  really 
"  DIVINE,"  then  it  would,  according  to  ancient  ideas,  be  a 
pollution  to  the  image  of  the  god,  that  a  dead  body  should 
be  placed  in  proximity  to  it.  But  in  a  court,  or  lawn, 
near  by,  Dio's  wife  and  child  lay  buried.  The  advocate 
who  was  employed  to  prosecute  I)io  for  breacli,  or  insuffi- 
cient performance  of  contract  in  erecting  the  building, 
seems  to  have  been  ashamed  of  this  additional  charge. 
Yet  Pliny  —  who  had  already  more  than  once  deferred 
settling  these  accounts,  which  Dio  was  anxious  to  close, 
and  who  had,  at  the  request  of  Dio's  opponents,  moved 
their  examination  to  another  town  —  delayed  the  whole 
matter  for  the  purpose  of  communicating  to  the  emperor 
concerning  his  statue.^"      The   emperor   responded   that 

not  be  proper  to  omit,  that,  for  the  inhabitants  of  Antioch,  it  is  not  al- 
lowed [speaking  by  contraries  ?]  to  undertake  anything  of  the  kind,  .  .  . 
whose  city  is  thirty-six  stadia  [about  four  and  a  half  miles]  long,  and 
they  have  made  colonnades  on  either  side.  Nor  yet  the  inhabitants  of 
Tarsus  or  of  Nicomedia,  who  voted  to  remove  the  sepulchres.  And 
!Macrinus,  whom  they  [the  Nicomedians]  enrolled  as  a  benefactor  of  the 
city,  transferred  out  of  the  market-place  the  sepulchre  of  King  Prusias 
and  also  his  image.  For  among  them  there  was  [we  may  assume]  no 
one  who  loved  his  city  or  cared  about  the  gods  ;  but  among  us  such 
were  plentiful. 

"But  be  the  foregoing  matters  as  they  may,  what  need  had  I  [spe- 
cially] of  a  colonnade  there,  as  if  ...  I  only  was  to  promena<le  there 
and  none  of  the  other  citizens?"  —  Dio  Chrys.  47,7;  edit.  Reiske, 
Vol.  2,  pp.  229,  230. 

"  "Whilst  I  was  despatching  some  public  affairs,  sir,  at  Prusa,  with 
an  intention  of  leaving  that  city  the  same  day,  the  magistrate  Asclejn- 
ades  informed  me,  that  Eumolpus  had  appealed  to  me  from  a  motion  which 
Cocceianus  Dion  made  in  their  Senate.  Dion,  it  seems,  liaving  been  ap- 
pointed supervisor  of  a  public  edifice,  desired  that  it  might  be  assigned 
to  the  city  in  form.  Eumolpus,  who  was  counsel  for  Flavins  Archijipus, 
insisted  that  Dion  should  first  be  required  to  deliver  in  his  accounts  re- 
lating to  this  work,  before  it  was  assigned  to  the  corporation  ;  suggesting 
he  had  not  performed  his  duty  in  the  manner  he  ought.     He  took  notice 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF  FIRST   CENTURY.  303 

Dio's  accounts  with  the  public  were  of  course  to  be  duly 
examined,  but  that  the  statue  was  a  matter  about  which 
Pliny  ought  not  to  have  written  him.'^ 

at  the  same  time,  that  this  building,  in  which  your  statue  is  erected, 
was  made  use  of  also  for  the  burial  of  the  dead,  the  bodies  of  Dion's 
wife  and  son  being  (as  he  asserted)  there  deposited ;  and  petitioned  that 
I  would  hear  this  cause  in  the  public  tribunal.  Upon  my  complying 
with  his  request,  and  deferring  my  journey  for  that  purpose,  he  desired 
a  longer  day  in  order  to  prepare  the  cause,  and  that  I  would  try  it  in 
some  other  city,  I  appointed  the  city  of  Nicea,  where,  when  I  took  my 
seat,  Eumolpus,  pretending  not  to  be  yet  sufficiently  instructed,  moved 
that  the  trial  might  be  again  put  off;  Dion,  on  the  contrary,  insisted  that 
it  should  be  heard.  They  debated  this  point  very  fully  on  both  sides, 
and  entered  a  little  into  the  merits  of  the  cause;  when,  being  of  an 
opinion  that  it  was  reasonable  [advisable]  it  should  be  adjourned,  and 
thinking  it  proper  to  advise  with  you  in  an  affair  vi'hich  was  of  conse- 
quence IN  POINT  OF  EXAMPLE,  I  directed  them  to  give  in  the  articles  of 
their  respective  allegations  in  writing;  for  I  was  desirous  you  should 
judge  from  their  own  M'ords  of  what  was  offered  on  each  part.  This 
Dion  promised  to  do,  as  Eumolpus  also  assured  me  he  would  draw  up  in 
writing  what  he  had  to  allege  on  the  part  of  the  community.  But  he 
added,  that,  being  only  concerned  as  advocate  on  behalf  of  Archippus, 
whose  instructions  he  had  laid  before  me,  HE  had  nothing  to  charge 
WITH  RESPECT  TO  THE  SEPULCHRE.s.  Archippus,  however,  for  whom 
Eumolpus  was  counsel  here,  at  Prusa,  undertook  to  present  an  accusation 
upon  this  head  in  writing.  But  neither  Eumolpus  nor  Archippus  (though 
I  have  waited  several  days  for  that  purpose)  have  yet  performed  their 
engagement:  Dion  indeed  has;  and  I  have  annexed  his  memorial  to  this 
letter.  I  have  taken  a  view  myself  of  the  buildings,  where  I  find  your 
statue  is  placed  in  a  library ;  and  as  to  the  edifice  which  is  supposed  to 
contain  the  bodies  of  Dion's  wife  and  son,  it  stands  in  the  middle  of  an 
area,  which  is  surrounded  with  a  colonnade.  I  particularly,  therefore, 
entreat  you,  sir,  to  direct  my  judgment  in  the  determination  of  this 
cause  ABOVE  all  others,  as  it  is  a  point  to  which  the  world  is  greatly 
ATTENTIVE.  And,  indeed,  it  highly  deserves  a  very  mature  deliberation, 
since  the  fact  is  not  only  acknowledged,  but  countenanced  by  many 
EXAMPLES."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  10,  85,  Melmoth's  trans. 

"^  "As  you  well  know,  my  dear  Pliny,  it  is  the  fixed  maxim  of  my 
government  not  to  create  an  awe  of  my  person  by  severe  and  rigorous 
measures,  and  by  construing  every  slight  offence  into  an  act  of  treason, 
there  was  no  occasion  for  you  to  hesitate  a  moment  upon  the  point, 


304  JUDAISM  AT   EOME.  [CH.  X. 

The  wife  and  child,  interred  near  the  public  library, 
may  have  been  the  same  whom  Dio,  in  his  Oration,  46,  4 
(quoted  in  note  73),  mentions  as  alive.  '  If  so,  the  ques- 
tion suggests  itself,  whether  a  violent  destruction  of  his 
home  can  have  hastened  his  wife's  death. 

Pliny's  behavior  towards  Dio  is  only  to  be  accounted 
for,  by  supposing  that  personal  or  political  feeling  had 
impelled  him  into  an  unworthy  and  contemptible  course. 
Under  Trajan's  rule  and  Pliny's  proconsulship,  zeal  for 
heathenism  was  doubtless  a  passport  to  office,  of  which 
Dio's  enemies  availed  themselves.  But  in  Trajan  this 
tendency  was  more  modified  by  equity,  or  else  by  personal 
regard  for  Dio,  than  in  Pliny.  I  am  unaware  of  any  in- 
stance in  which  Dio  attempted  to  preserve,  or  improve, 
his  own  standing  by  disparagement  of  Jews  or  Christians. 
Unwillingness  to  seek  favor  or  avoid  persecution,  in  such 
a  way,  is  no  slight  evidence  of  true-heartedness  and  self- 
respect. 

The  appeal  from  a  decision  of  the  city  senate  to  Pliny 
implies  that  the  former  body  favored  Dio.  The  removal 
of  the  trial  from  Prusa  —  its  appropriate  place  of  hearing, 
and  where  any  evidence  would  be  most  accessible  —  ad- 
mits but  one  plausible  solution.  Public  opinion  there 
must  have  favored  Dio.  His  opponents  must  have  wished 
to  withdraw  the  trial  from  any  such  influence.  This  im- 
plies, however,  that  the  opposition  to  liim,  whicli  appears 
in  notes  72  and  73,  must  have  been  unsustained  by  public 
sentiment,  or,  at  least,  must  have  been  sliort-lived.  Perhaps 
it  may  have  been  instigated  by  the  self-interest  of  a  few. 

concerning  which  you  thought  proper  to  consult  me.  "Without  entering, 
therefore,  into  that  question  (to  which  I  would  by  no  means  give  an'S 

ATTENTION,    THOITGH    THERE   WERE    EVER    SO   MANY   INSTANCES    OF   THE 

SAME  kind),  I  recommend  to  your  care  the  examination  of  Dion's  ac- 
counts relating  to  the  public  works  which  he  has  finished ;  as  it  is  a  case 
in  which  the  interest  of  the  city  is  concerned,  and  as  Dion  neither  ouglit, 
nor  indeed  does  refuse  to  submit  to  the  inciuiry."  ^  Trajan,  in  Pliny, 
Jan.  10,  sr;,  Melmoth's  trans. 

An  ecjually  probable  translation  of  what  succeeds  the  parenthesis  is 
the  following:  "  Let  an  account  of  the  whole  work  cffccti  sub  cura  tua, 
accomplished  under  your  jurisdiction,  be  exacted  from  Cocceianus  Dio." 


§  i\'.]  POSITION  AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  305 

The  facility  with  which  Pliny  permitted  himself  to  be 
diverted  from  a  simple  business  matter,  by  alleged  danger 
to  religion,  may  aid  our  understanding  of  other  events  in 
his  proconsulship,  which  we  shall  hereafter  consider. 

10.  Plutarch,  the  next  on  our  list,  stood  one  remove 
further  than  Dio  from  monotheistic  ground.  The  remove 
M-as  a  tolerably  broad  one,  unless  I  am  deceived  as  to  the 
following  remark.  Dio's  writings  imply,  at  least,  if  they 
do  not  state,  the  binding  force  of  conscience  and  the  su- 
premacy of  moral  law.  In  Plutarch,  morality  seems  to  be 
regarded  rather  from  a  utilitarian  position,  as  a  preserva- 
ti^■e  against  folly  and  suffering.  In  determining  Plutarch's 
application  of  his  own  views,  his  "  Consolation,"  addressed 
to  his  wife,  shows  an  approval  of  simplicity  in  dress  as 
practised  byher.'^  His  "Table  Conversations"  show  that 
he  aimed  at  something  better  than  ordinary  heathen  cus- 
toms. Yet  he  seems  inclined  to  expose  error  rather  tlian 
EARNESTLY  to  advocatc  moral  truth.  He  was  willing  to 
ridicule  the  Jews^*^  and  to  dwell  on  Stoic  inconsistencies.^^ 
As  the  Stoics  were  the  only  body  of  heathens  who  as  a 
CLASS  laid  stress  on  morality,  it  arrests  attention  that  a 
moralist  should  only  find  fault  with  them. 

Plutarch's  tract  on  Superstition  opens  to  us  his  state  of 

'^  Plutarch,  Consolatio  ad  Uxorcm,  4  ;  0]^]}.  8,  p.  402,  edit.  Eeiske. 

^^  The  fourth  book  of  Plutarch's  Table  Conversations  is  imperfect, 
breaking  off  apparently  in  the  course  of  the  fifth  Conversation.  The 
extant  portion  of  this  Conversation  discusses  the  question  why  Jews 
abstain  from  pork ;  whether,  because  of  disgust  towards  swine,  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  because  of  a  religious  veneration  for  them.  The  extant 
fragment  adopts  the  latter  of  the  two  suppositions.  Whether  in  the  lost 
portion  of  it  any  speaker  was  represented  as  defending  the  opposite  view 
is  but  a  matter  of  surmise.  Unless  the  extant  misrepresentation  were 
palliated  by  something  now  lost,  it  is  very  inexcusable. 

In  the  tract  On  Siqxrsdtion  (7,  0pp.  6,  pp.  646,  647,  edit.  Reiske), 
Plutarch  illustrates  his  subject  by  the  conduct  of  Jews  who  had  permit- 
ted, during  war,  that  enemies  should  capture  their  fortifications  without 
resistance  on  the  sabbath.  The  illustration,  though  a  fair  one,  would 
probably  have  been  avoided  had  the  writer  regarded  Jewish  morality  as 
calling,  in  the  main,  for  more  acceptance  than  it  received. 

"^  Plutarch  devoted  a  special  work  to  the  Inconsistencies  of  tlie  Stoics. 

T 


306  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

mind.  In  it  super.stitious  heathens  are  deservedly  and 
unsparingly  held  up  to  ridicule.^^  We  can  safely  infer 
that  the  writer  who  does  this  belonged  not  to  the  class 
who  were  trembling  for  the  fate  of  old  institutions.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  do  not  find  him  elucidating  and  defend- 
in<Tf  any  set  of  views  wdiich  commanded  his  untjualified 
assent.  He  merely  contrasts  superstition  with  atheism, 
and  between  the  two  extremes  gives  a  preference  to  the 
latter.  He  assumes,  however,  without  argument,  though 
not  without  contradiction  from  himself,  the  benevolent 
character  of  any  divine  being,^^  and,  in  so  doing,  places 

^2  "Of  all  fears  the  most  incurable  and  helpless  is  superstition.  The 
sea  is  no  terror  to  him  who  sails  not,  nor  war  to  him  who  is  not  engaged 
in  it.  The  stayer  at  home  fears  not  highwaymen,  nor  does  the  poor  man 
dread  sycophants,  nor  the  private  individual  fear  the  envious.  The 
dweller  in  Gaul  is  not  afraid  of  earthquakes,  nor  in  Ethiopia  of  thun- 
derbolts. But  he  who  fears  the  gods,  fears  all  things,  —  land,  sea,  air, 
heaven,  darkness,  light,  sound,  silence,  dreams."  ^ — Plutarch,  De  Super- 
stitione,  3.  "There  is  a  law  for  slaves  who  give  up  the  idea  of  freedom, 
that  they  may  ask  a  sale  and  change  their  master  for  a  juster  one.  But 
superstition  grants  no  change  of  gods,  nor  is  it  possible  to  find  a  god 
without  terror  for  him  who  fears  those  of  his  country  and  family,  who 
shudders  at  saviors  and  benefactors ;  trembling  and  afraid  of  those  from 
whom  we  ask  wealth,  plenty,  concord,  peace,  the  direction  of  '  most 
prosperous  words  and  works.'  "  — Dc  Siqierstit.  4  ;  0pp.  6,  p.  635.  "  An 
altar  is  a  [safe]  refuge  for  a  slave.  Even  by  robbers  many  fanes  are 
[deemed]  inviolable ;  and  fugitives  from  enemies,  if  they  can  lay  hold  of 
an  image  or  a  temple,  take  courage.  But  the  superstitious  man  shudders 
and  fears  before,  and  is  alarmed  by,  the  very  things  which  give  hope  to 
others  in  their  utmost  dread.  [No  need]  to  drag  a  superstitious  man 
from  fanes.  He  suffers  punishment  and  vengeance  there.  What  need 
of  many  words  ?  Death  is  to  all  [in  the  sense  of,  to  most]  men  the  close 
of  life.  But  to  the  superstitious  man  not  even  it  [is  the  end].  He 
transcends  these  limits,  creating  to  himself  a  fear  of  e.xistence  beyond, 
longer  than  this  life,  and  attaching  to  death  the  thought  of  endless 
evils."  — Z)e  Supcrstit.  4;  0pp.  6,  pp.  635,  636.  "Others  contend  with 
misfortune,  .  .  .  but  the  superstitious  man,  saying  to  himself  without 
prompting  from  any  one,  '  You  suffer  these  things,  0  ill-starred  man, 
through  providence  and  the  command  of  divine  power,'  throws  away  all 
hope."  —  De  Supcrstit.  7;  0pp.  6,  p.  644. 

^3  "Atheism,  being  an  incorrect  decision,  that  nothing  is  blessed  and 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  307 

himself  in  striking  contrast  to  conservatism  as  manifested 
in  Tacitus.  His  allusion  to  divine  power  as  paternal  is 
best  explained  by  supposing  that  Monotheism  had  even 

imperishable,  seems  to  cause  absence  of  sufiFering  by  its  lack  of  belief  in 
anything  divine ;  and  the  result  of  believing  that  no  gods  exist  is  that 
you  do  not  fear  them.  [On  the  other  hand]  its  name  [in  Greek,  '  demon- 
dread  ']  indicates  superstition  as  a  belief  which  causes  suffering,  and  as 
the  [prevalent]  poetic  conception  of  a  fear  which  debases  and  crushes  a 
man  who  believes  that  there  are  gods,  and  that  these  are  mischievous  and 
hurtful.  .  .  .  Ignorance  has  implanted  in  the  one  a  disbelief  of  that 
which  is  benignant,  but  in  the  other  has  superadded  an  opinion  that  it 
harms  [us]."  —  Plutarch,  De  Siqjerstit.  2,  0pp.  6,  pp.  629,  630.  "  What 
then !  Does  not  the  condition  of  atheists  as  comjiared  with  the  supersti- 
tious appear  to  you  as  having  this  advantage  ?  The  former  see  no  gods 
whatever;  the  latter  believe  their  existence.  The  former  pay  them  no 
attention ;  the  latter  conceive  as  frightful  what  is  benignant,  as  tyran- 
nical what  is  PATERNAL,  as  noxious  what  is  protective ;  and  what  is 
dtMl/jLTjTov,  inimitable  [in  perfection]  they  deem  violent  and  savage.  Then 
they  are  persuaded  by  brass-founders  and  stone-cutters  and  wax-moulders, 
that  the  bodies  of  the  gods  are  like  those  of  men ;  and  they  form  and 
dress  up  such  things,  and  bow  down  before  them." — De  Supcrstit.  6; 
Op2:>.  6,  p.  639. 

"Neither  in  the  pleasures  [of  life]  is  [superstition]  superior  to  atheism. 
Men  take  special  pleasure  in  festivals,  and  sacred  entertainments  and 
initiations  and  orgies,  and  supplication  of  the  gods  and  adorations.  See 
then  the  atheist  under  such  circumstances,  laughing  a  mad  and  sardonic 
laughter  at  these  proceedings, — and  perhaps  remarking  quietly  to  his 
companions,  that  they  are  blinded  and  demented,  who  think  that  these 
things  are  a  service  of  the  gods,  —  but  otherwise  unblamable.  The  su- 
perstitious man  [on  the  contrary]  wishes,  but  is  unable,  to  rejoice  or  take 
pleasure.  The  city  is  filled  with  sacrifices  and  paeans ;  the  soul  of  the 
superstitious  man  with  groans.  Crowned  with  a  wreath,  he  turns  pale; 
sacrificing,  he  is  in  terror ;  he  prays  in  a  quivering  voice,  and  offers  in- 
cense with  trembling  hands."  —  De  Superstit.  8;  Ojjp.  6,  pp.  647,  648. 
"  It  is  a  matter  of  wonder  to  me  that  those  who  call  atheism  daejSeLav 
unbelief,  do  not  call  superstition  the  same.  I  would  prefer  that  men 
should  say  of  me,  that  I  had  never  existed,  that  there  was  no  Plutarch, 
rather  than  to  say,  that  Plutarch  is  an  unreliable,  fickle  man,  prompt  to 
anger,  revengeful  about  ordinary  occurrences,  taking  offence  at  trifies." 
—  De  Superstit.  9  ;  Opj}.  6,  p.  648.  "The  atheist  thinks  that  there  are  no 
gods.  The  superstitious  man  wishes  that  there  were  none.  He  believes 
unwillingly,  for  he  fears  death.  .   .    .  The  atheist  has  no  share  in  super- 


308  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

in  Europe  influenced  the  less  bigoted  lieatliens.^*  It  may 
be  doubted,  however,  whether,  in  Phitarch's  religious  sys- 
tem, the  ideas  of  responsibility  to  divine  power  and  of 
quiet  self-sacrifice  held  a  prominent  place.  His  tone 
would  lead  us  to  expect  less  of  it  in  him  than  in  Dio. 

Plutarch  designates  a  class  of  heathens  as  atheists.  I 
am  unaware  that  this  is  done  by  any  other  heathen  writer. 
In  his  time,  or  shortly  afterwards,  the  term  A-theists  de- 
signated Christians.  Was  he  indirectly  defending  Chris- 
tians against  maltreatment  ?  He  never  ridicules  them 
as  he  does  Jews.  His  argument  would  favor  Christians 
equally  as  other  non-worshijDpers  of  the  heathen  deities. 
No  class  of  HEATHEN  athcists  were  so  placed  as  to  call  for 
defence.  Christians  were.  If  his  work  on  Superstition 
were  written  during  Nerva's  reign,^^  it  could  scarcely  have 
been  regarded  by  its  readers  otherwise  tlian  as  making 
grovmd  on  which  Christians  could  stand ;  as  palliating 
their  non-recognition  of  the  heathen  deities.  His  work 
"Against  the  Stoics"  may  have  been  written  under  Trajan. 

Such  degree  of  affinity  between  him  and  Cliristianity 
as  the  foregoing  may  imply  is  corroborated  by  Plutarch's 
position  touching  Homer.  Concordance  with  the  Ery- 
thrpean  verses  as  to  Homer's  falsehoods  about  the  gods  ^^ 
had  won  for  Dio  the  epithet  of  Unbeliever,  or  Monotheist.^' 

stition.  But  the  superstitious  man,  wlio  would  prefer  to  be  an  atheist, 
is  too  weak  to  think  as  he  woukl  wish  concerning  the  gods.  The  atheist, 
moreover,  is  not  an  accomplice  of  superstition,  but  superstition  originated 
atheism  and  gives  an  apology,  though  not  a  correct  nor  praiseworthy  one, 
for  its  existence." — Dc  Supcrstit.  10,  11 ;  Opi^  6,  pp.  652,  653. 

8*  On  the  term,  "Father  Jupiter,"  in  heathen  writings,  see  remarks 
on  page  52. 

8^  The  tract  on  Su])erstition  is,  according  to  the  present  arrange- 
ment  of  Plutarch's  works,  followed  by  one  "  Apophthegmata,"  addressed 
to  the  Emperor  Trajan.  If  the  present  arrangement  corresponds  with  the 
order  in  which  the  different  works  were  written,  additional  plausibility 
would  be  given  to  the  supposition  that  the  one  on  Superstition  ap- 
peared during  Nerva's  reign.  Its  publication,  if  during  conservative 
supremacy,  would  seem  somewhat  bold. 

^'^  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  62. 

"'  See  Appendix,  Note  A,  foot-note  63. 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  309 

Plutarch  acjrees  with  Dio  and  the  monotheists,  that  eocis 
did  not  join  in  the  light  nor  get  beaten  before  Troy.  He 
states  :  "  The  self-contradictions  of  the  poets,  by  interfer- 
ing with  credence,  do  not  permit  a  strong  tendency  towards 
the  injurious.  When  juxtaposition  renders  their  incon- 
sistencies obvious,  we  must  assent  to  what  is  most  reason- 
able. .  .  .  When  absurdities  are  uttered,  and  not  at  once 
solved  [in  the  sense  of  exposed],  we  must  render  them 
powerless  by  means  of  their  opposites  elsewhere  stated, 
not  being  discontented,  nor  angry  with  the  poet  [himself], 
but  [only]  at  statements  made  from  habit  or  playfulness. 
Thus,  if  you  please,  [in  answer]  to  the  Homeric  accounts 
of  gods  thrown  headlong  by  each  other,  and  their  being 
wounded  by  men  and  their  variances  and  hatreds 
[quote] :  — 

'  You  can  devise  a  better  tale  than  this,'  ^ 

and  you  do  devise  .  .  .  and  utter  elsewhere  the  follow- 
ing, which  is  superior  and  better :  — 

' .  .  .  the  quietly  living  gods.'  ^ 
And 

'  There  the  blessed  gods  perpetually  enjoy  themselves.'^ 
And 

'  Thus  the  gods  appoint  for  miserable  mortals 
To  live  afflicted.     But  they  themselves  have  no  care.' " 

"  For  these  are  wholesome  and  true  opinions,  but  the 
former  are  invented  for  the  consternation  of  men."  ^^ 

In  this  last  quotation  from  Homer,  the  indifference  of 
the  gods  towards  human  happiness  is  striking.  Plutarch's 
approval  of  it  strengthens  the  conviction  that  heathen 
conservatives  —  whatever  their  repugnance  for  his  teach- 
ings—  would  fear  him  less  than  the  more  earnest  Dio. 
His  expressed  approval  of  such  intense  selfishness  is  ren- 
dered yet  more  strange  by  his  immediately  subjoining, 
"  When  Euripides  says, 

'  With  many  a  form  of  sophism  the  gods, 
Our  superiors,  mislead  us,' 

^  Diad,  7,  358.  ^9  Iliad,  6, 13S.  9°  Odys.  6,  46. 

91  Iliad,  24,  .i25,  5-26, 

^-  Plutarch,  De  audiauUs  Poetis,  4  ;  Oi)p.  Moral.  6,  pp.  72,  73. 


310  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  X. 

it  is  no  mistake  to  add  his  better  remark  :  — 

'  If  the  gods  do  anything  wrong,  they  are  not  gods.'  "  * 

Heathens  who,  with  or  without  interest  in  monotheism, 
contemned  their  national  religion,  and  the  bigotry  or  self- 
interest  of  its  defenders,  must  have  listened  with  relish 
to  Plutarch's  skilful  subversion  of  conservative  positions 
by  means  of  conservative  authorities. 

11.  Tacitus,  in  regard  to  what  was  called  religion, 
shared  the  narrow  bigotry  and  inconsistency,  and  joined 
in  asserting  the  debasing  views  of  the  class  to  which  he 
belonged.  He  tells  us  his  uncertainty  as  to  whether  human 
affairs  M'ere  or  were  not  the  result  of  chance.^*  Yet,  in 
the  face  of  this,  he  alleges  human  calamities  to  be  unmis- 
takably the  result  of  divine  revenge,^^  and  is  bitterly  se- 
vere on  Jewish  irreligion  because  it  paid  no  attention  to 
the  omens  which  were  said  to  have  preceded  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem.^^  A  fair  inference  from  his  language  is,  that, 
in  his  opinion,  if  the  Jews  had  attended  to  these  omens 
and  pacified  the  gods,  their  city  might,  or  would,  have 
escaped  capture.  The  extent  to  which  prejudice  rendered 
him  indifferent  to  truth  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  his 
statements  concerning  the  Jewish  sanctuary.  He  narrates 
that  Pompey  entered  it  and  found  it  empty ,^"  yet  in  de- 

93  Plutarch,  Dc  audiendis  Poctis,  4  ;  Oji}}.  Moral,  6,  p.  73.  Compare 
on  p.  4,  extract  from  Phitarch,  Adv.  Stoic,  c.  14. 

9*  Tacitus,  An.  6,  ii,  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  6. 

^  Tacitus,  Hist.  1,  3,  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  6. 

96  «<  Prodigies  had  occnrred  which  that  race,  enshived  to  superstition, 
but  opposed  to  religion,  held  it  unlawful,  either  hy  vows  or  victims,  to 
expiate.  Embattled  armies  were  seen  rushing  to  the  encounter,  with 
burnished  arms,  and  the  whole  Temple  appeared  to  blaze  with  fire  that 
flashed  from  the  clouds.  Suddenly  the  portals  of  the  sanctuary  were 
flung  wide  open,  and  a  voice,  in  more  than  mortal  accents,  was  lieard  to 
announce  that  the  gods  were  going  forth  ;  at  the  same  time  a  prodigious 
bustle,  as  of  persons  taking  their  departure  ;  occurrences  wliich  few  in- 
terpreted as  indicative  of  impending  woe."  —  Tacitus,  Hist.  5,  13,  Bohn's 
trans. 

^"  "Among  Romans,  Cneius  Pompey  first  conquered  the  Jews,  and  hy 
right  of  his  victory  entered  their  temple.     Thereby  was  made  known  that 


§iv.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST    CENTURY.  oil 

fiance  of  this  evidence,  and  in  close  proximity  to  it,  he 
tells  us,  with  other  hard  stories,  that  within  this  sanc- 
tuary the  Jews  had  consecrated  the  head  of  an  ass.^^ 
Christians  eqvially  with  Jews  were  subjects  of  his  aver- 
sion and  misrej)resentation,^^  —  a  pretty  sure  evidence 
that  both  divisions  of  monotheism  were  perceptibly  gaining 
upon  heathenism. 

In  parting  from  Tacitus  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  he, 
like  many  another,  may  have  supposed  himself  to  believe 
some  things  which  he  did  not.  This,  however,  bvit  par- 
tially excuses  him,  since,  in  such  cases,  the  self-deception 
was  largely  his  own  fault.  His  tone  is  free  from  levity, 
and  at  times  sombre  even  to   depression.^^'^     This  may 

the  seclem  locality  was  empty,  and  their  secret  rites  unmeaning,  there 
being  no  effigy  of  gods  within."  — Tacitus,  Hist.  5,  9, 

^  Tacitus  narrates  {Hist.  5,  3)  that  when  the  Jews  were  perishing  from 
thirst,  Moses  was  guided  to  water  by  a  herd  of  wild  asses,  after  which  he 
states,  that  the  Jews  "  consecrated  in  their  sanctuary  an  effigy  of  the 
animal  under  whose  guidance  they  had  escaped  wandering  and  thirst."  — 
Tacitus,  Hist.  5, 4. 

This  tale,  with  the  addition  that  the  ass-head  was  of  gold,  is  among 
those  by  which  Apion  endeavored  to  cast  ridicule  on  the  Jews.  Ac- 
cording to  him  (Josephus,  Against  Apivn,  2,  7,  7)  it  was  discovered  in  the 
temple  by  Antiochus  Epij)hanes  (compare  Ch.  VIII.  note  190),  an  account 
which  Josephus  treats  as  first  fabricated  either  by  Posidonius  or  Apollo- 
nius.  In  Plutarch's  Symposiacon,  4,  5,  3  {0pp.  8,  p.  665,  ed.  Rciske), 
one  of  the  speakers  introduces  the  same  story.  We  shall  find  hereafter 
that  a  caricature  of  it  found  place  in  Hadrian's  palace.  From  a  passage 
in  Tertullian's  Apology,  16  (repeated  in  his  Ad  Nationes,  1,  ll),  it  would 
seem  that  Christians,  or  at  least  the  violently  semi-Jewish  ones,  were  also 
taunted  with  worshipping  the  head  of  an  ass. 

3'  See  on  p.  246,  note  189. 

100  Tliere  is,  mingled  with  other  emotions,  a  mournfulness,  sincere  or 
affected,  in  the  tone  wherewith  Tacitus  {Agric.  46)  addresses  his  deceased 
father-in-law:  "If,  as  wise  men  think,  grj:at  minds  are  not  extinguished 
with  the  body."  It  is  not  an  ignorant  and  superstitious  dread  of  phys- 
ical death,  but  the  longing  for  continued  existence  of  an  intelligent  nuni, 
who  had  but  faint  hope  that  even  a  few  favored  mortals  were  exempted 
from  extinction.  Only  the  idea  of  a  superintending  good  being  can 
afford  reasonable  hope  of  a  future  life.     The  prejudices  of  Tacitus  clung 


312  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  X. 

have  been  due  to  constitutional  temperament,  to  personal 
surroundings,  or  to  both. 

12.  The  character  of  the  younger  Pliny  was  soiled  by 
levity ,^*^^  and  by  some  peculiarities  of  small  minds,  such 
as  adulation  ^^  and  cherishing  a  grudge.^^^     He  was  com- 

to  a  contentious,  worthless  rabble  of  deities  in  whose  hands  a  thoughtful 
man  would  have  been  loath  to  trust  his  domestic  animals,  let  alone  the 
welfare  of  his  children. 

101  fpi^ig  shows  itself,  not  only  in  the  absence  of  any  high  standard  of 
propriety,  but  by  adoptioji  and  defence  of  its  opposite.  Pliny  amused  his 
leisure  on  one  occasion  by  writing  indecencies  in  poetry  which  he  sent 
with  a  letter  (4,  U)  to  a  friend.  Had  the  matter  stopped  here  it  might 
seem  some  momentary  failing.  From  a  later  letter,  however  (5,  3),  ad- 
dressed to  a  different  person,  it  seems  that  Pliny  must  have  recited  these 
indecencies  to  others,  and  felt  satisfaction  that  the  individual  to  whom  he 
was  writing  had  communicated  them  with  their  author's  name  to  friends 
under  his  roof.  Some  of  these  disapproved  the  composition  and  recital 
of  such  verses  by  Pliny.  He  defends  himself  by  saying  (§  2),  "I  am 
A  MAN,"  homo  sum,  and  (§  3)  that  other  persons  of  standing  had  done 
the  same.  In  yet  another  letter  (7,  4),  he  speaks  again  of  his  efforts  in 
this  direction,  which  eventually  were  published.  He  says  that  he  felt  no 
regret  for  his  publication,  and  treats  its  success  (see  note  106)  as  some- 
thing glorious  for  himself. 

Gibbon  says  of  Pliny  (in  company  with  Thrasea,  Helvidius,  and  Taci- 
tus), that  "from  Grecian  philosophy  they  had  imbibed  the  justest  and 
most  liberal  notions  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature."  —  Decline  and 
Fall,  3,  Vol.  1,  pp.  91,  92,  Philada.  edit.  1816.  His  words  contrast 
strangely  with  Pliny's  estimate  of  manhood.  On  the  "  liberal  notions  " 
inculcated  by  Greek  philosophy,  compare  Appendix,  Note  K,  §  ii.  12. 

102  Pliny's  Panegyric  on  Trajan  and  his  correspondence  with  that 
emperor  are  sufficient  evidence  of  his  adulatory  tendencies.  One  of  the 
titles  used  towards  Domitian,  that  of  "Lord,"  is  constantly  used  by 
Pliny  towards  Trajan. 

^"3  In  some  trial  —  not  impossibly  a  political  one  — before  the  court  of 
One  Hundred,  during  Domitian's  reign,  Pliny,  as  counsel,  quoted  the 
opinion  of  Metius  Modestus,  then  in  banishment.  Regulus,  the  oppos- 
ing counsel,  availed  himself  of  the  mistake  by  asking  Pliny  (1,  .5,  §  '>), 
"What  do  YOU  think  of  Modestus?" — a  question  somewhat  dangerous 
to  answer  in  any  way  which  would  favor  his  case.  Pliny  nc^ver  forgave 
him.  When  a  son  of  Regulus  died,  Pliny  wrote  a  letter  (4,  2)  to  ridicule 
the  father's  somewhat  extravagant  manifestations  of  grief,  and,  subse- 


§iv.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST   CENTUFvY.  313 

petent  to  confound  this  latter  tendency  with  the  perform- 
ance of  public  duty.^'^*  His  self-esteem  and  love  of 
approbation,  moreover,  seem  to  have  been  very  strong  ^^^ 

quently,  devoted  a  second  letter  (4, 7)  to  the  same  object  and  to  ridiculing 
him  as  an  orator.  After  his  death  Pliny  writes  (6,  2,  §  4):  "  Regulus  did 
well  to  die.     He  would  have  done  yet  better  by  dying  sooner." 

^°*  Pliny  and  some  other  of  the  senatorial  leaders  bore  a  personal 
gi'udge  to  Publicius  Certus,  the  man  who  had  arrested  the  younger 
Helvidius.  During  his  absence  from  the  Senate,  Pliny  introduced  a 
motion  intended  to  condemn  his  action,  but  cautiously  forbearing  at  first 
to  name  him.  Partly  by  a  ruse  of  the  consul,  the  motion  was  carried, 
and  Pliny  seems  to  have  accepted  as  truthful  the  congratulations  of 
senators,  because  "I  had  at  last  freed  the  Senate  from  the  odium  with 
which  it  was  universally  regarded  by  other  classes,  in  that,  while  un- 
relenting towards  others,  it.  by  a  mutual  dissimulation,  was  forbearing 
solely  to  senators."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  9,  13,  §21.  Certus  was  perhaps  on 
his  death-bed  when  the  motion  was  introduced ;  see  §  24  of  same  letter. 

105  Pliny,  according  to  his  own  statement  (5, 3),  made  it  a  habit  to 
collect  friends  at  his  house  and  recite  to  them  his  own  verses,  studying 
meanwhile  their  faces  and  actions.  "  What  each  one  thinks,  he  [the 
author]  discovers  from  the  countenance,  the  eyes,  the  motion  of  the  head, 
or  hand,  from  a  murmur,  or  from  silence."  —  5,  §  0.  In  §  S  of  the  same 
letter  he  mentions  that  "reverentia  auditorum,  the  desire  of  approval 
from  his  auditors,"  incited  a  closer  attention  to  his  writings,  qui  recitat 
aliquanto  aerius  scnptis  suis  .  .   .  intcndit. 

In  Book  4,  Epistle  19,  Pliny  narrates  the  excellences  of  his  wife, 
which,  as  portrayed  by  her  husband,  consisted  largely  in  admiration  of 
himself.  If  he  recited  his  productions,  she  took  position  behind  some 
screen,  where  she  listened  (§  3)  with  greedy  ears  to  the  praises  of  her 
husband,  laudesque  nostras  avidissimis  auribus  cxcipit.  She  sung  his 
verses  (§  i)  to  the  harp.  If  he  had  a  cause  to  plead  in  the  court  of  One 
Hundred,  she  arranged  messengers  who  should  bring  her  word  (§  .■^)  as  to 
the  assensum,  expressions  of  approval,  and  cZa??!,orc5,  outbreaks  of  applause, 
which  he  elicited. 

In  another  epistle,  — to  which  the  editor  has  appropriately  prefixed 
the  heading,  Vanitas  vanitaf.um  Pliniarum.  Omnia  in  hac  cpistola 
vana  sunt.  Vanity  of  Plinian  vanities.  All  things  in  this  epistle  are 
vanity,  — Pliny  begins  :  "  It  has  frequently  happened  to  me  whilst  plead- 
ing, that  the  court  of  One  Hundred,  after  restraining  themselves  for  a 
good  while  within  the  bounds  of  judicial  dignity  and  gravity,  would  all 
suddenly  rise  and  commence  applauding,  as  if  overcome  and  compelled 


314  JUDAISM    AT   HOME.  [CH.  X. 

and  not  always  discriminating. ^°^  He  was  an  ultra  con- 
servativ^e,  or  rather  a  reactionary,  both  in  things  divine 
and  human.  Despite  the  experience  of  others,  he  added 
one,  or  more,  to  existing  temples  ;  ^°"  and,  despite  the  bet- 
ter feelings  of  mankind,  he  advocated  brutalities.^°^  Even 
when  acting  in  the  interests  of  humanity  and  not  improb- 

[thereto].  Frequently  from  [a  meeting  of]  the  Senate  I  have  carried 
away  the  utmost  fame  which  I  could  desire.  Yet  never  was  I  so  de- 
lighted as  with  a  statement  of  Cornelius  Tacitus.  He  narrated  that  at 
the  last  Circensian  games  a  Roman  knight  sat  with  him ;  that  after  a 
variety  of  literary  conversation  this  man  asked  him,  'Are  you  an  Italian 
or  a  Provincial  ? '  He  answered,  '  You  are  already  acquainted  with  me 
through  my  pursuits.'  To  this  the  other  rejoined,  'Are  you  Tacitus  or 
Pliny?'  I  cannot  express  how  pleased  I  was."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  9,  23, 
§§  1-.3.     On  applause  in  court,  compare  note  47. 

106  When  Pliny's  more  judicious  friends  objected  to  his  writing  and 
reciting  indecent  verses,  he  replied,  "The  book  is  read,  copied,  even 
sung.  And  by  Greeks,  also,  —  whom  a  love  for  this  little  book  has  taught 
Latin, — it  is  sung  to  the  lyre  and  harp.  What  [else]  have  I  accom- 
plished equally  glorious  ?"  —  Pliny,  Jun.  7,  4,  §§  9,  10.  It  is  probal'le 
enough,  that  the  applause  bestowed  on  Pliny  during  his  private  readings 
was  not  always  disinterested.  Persons  who  wished  his  aid  may  have 
availed  themselves  of  his  foible. 

^"■^  Pliny  mentions  (Book  4,  Epist.  1)  the  erection  of  a  temple  at  his 
own  expense,  and,  unless  the  one  mentioned  in  Book  10,  Epistle  24,  be 
the  same,  he  must  have  built  two.  Compare  the  experience  of  earlier 
conservatives  in  Ch.  VIII.  notes  28,  29.  It  would  seem  to  have  been 
forgotten. 

^'^  A  friend  of  Pliny  named  Maximus  lost  his  wife  and  gave  an  expen- 
sive gladiatorial  funeral.  Pliny  writes  to  him:  "You  did  right.  .  .  . 
You  had  a  most  dear  and  deserving  wife,  to  whose  memory  was  due  some 
monument,  or  public  exhibition,  and  this  of  a  kind  especially  ajipropri- 
ate  to  a  funeral.  ...  I  could  wish  that  the  panthers,  Africancc,  of  which 
you  had  bought  so  many,  could  have  arrived  by  the  appointed  day."  — 
Pliny,  Jun.  6,  34.  If  a  man  in  cultivated  society  should,  at  the  present 
day,  celebrate  the  death  of  an  affectionate  wife  by  hiring  some  prize- 
fighters to  pound  each  other  for  public  amusement,  the  shock  to  public 
feeling  would  be  greater,  but  the  brutality  would  be  less  than  at  a  Roman 
gladiatorial  funeral.  Pliny,  at  one  time,  when  influenced  by  some  of  the 
better-minded  conservatives,  was  willing  to  take  ground,  though  not  very 
resolutely,  against  these  exhibitions;  see  note  59. 


§  lY.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF   FIRST    CENTURY.  315 

ably  from  benevolent  motives,  he   seems  unwilling,  or 
ashamed,  to  plant  himself  on  moral  ground. ^°^ 

This  man  was  sent  as  proconsul  to  Bithynia  under  the 
following  circumstances.  That  province,  which  in  the 
days  of  Paul  would  seem  to  have  been  a  stronghokl  of 
Judaism,  had,  in  the  days  of  Pliny,  outgrown  any  belief  in 
heathenism. ^^'^  A  reactionary  administration  such  as  sur- 
rounded Trajan  could  not  among  the  sincere  and  right- 
minded  Bithynians  have  found  men  willing  to  profess 
what  in  their  section  of  country  had  become  even  more 
a  subject  of  ridicule  than  at  liome.  If  Poman  conser- 
vatives wished  to  put  su])porters  of  the  old  religion  into 
power,  they  must  liave  taken  them  from  those  who  for 
the  sake  of  office  would  become  partisans  of  what  they 
ridiculed  in  their  hearts.  The  result  of  this  would  be 
maladministration  and  plundering  of  the  public  I'evenues, 
besides  injustice  and  extortion  towards  individuals.  To 
remedy  sucli  a  state  of  things,  Pliny  was  sent  to  Bi- 
thynia.^^^     He  may  have  been  financially  honest,  though 

i*'^  Afranius    Dexter  —  a    senator,     doubtless  —  was    found    killed. 
"Whether  by  his  own  hand  or  that  of  others  was  uncertain.     His  slaves 
had   already  been    put  to  the  torture.      Pliny  moved  their  acquittal 
Another  senator  moved  their  banishment ;  still  another,  their  e.xecution 
These  two  latter  and  their  adherents  wished  to  be  counted  conjointly 
Pliny  insisted  on  a  separate  count  of  each  party.     Thereupon  the  advo 
cates  of  cajiital  punislinient,  seeing  that  the  party  for  acquittal  outnum 
bered  either  of  the  others  separately,  joined  themselves  to  the  advocates 
of  banishment.     Pliny  may  have  been  largely  prompted  by  a  sense  of 
justice  and  humanity.     Yet  these  are  ignored  by  him,  and  of  his  letter 
(8,  I-))  giving  an  account  of  it,  one  half  is  a  preamble  and  the  other  a 
discussion  of  parliamentary  rules. 

"■^  Pliny  writes  to  Trajan:  "It  is  sufficiently  evident  that  the  al- 
most DESERTED  tcmples  have  begun  again  to  be  frequented,  and  the 
religious  rites,  long  intekmitted,  to  be  revived,  and  in  various  locali- 
ties victims  are  bought,  for  which  hitherto  only  an  exceptional  pur- 
chaser, rarissimus  cmjJtor,  was  found."  —  Pliny,  Jun.  10,  97,  lo. 

11^  Pliny,  in  his  first  letter  after  arriving  in  Bithynia,  writes  to  Trajan  : 
"Much  [public]  money  is  retained  by  private  individuals,  and  some  is 
applied  to  by  no  means  legitimate  expenses."  — Pliny,  Jun.  10,  28,  .'!. 
Trajan   answers:    "The  provincials  will,   I   trust,   understand  that  I 


316  JUDAISM   AT  EOME.  [CH.  X. 

our  knowledge  of  liis  life  is  inadequate  to  warrant  an 
aftirmation  to  that  effect.  Among  honest  men,  however, 
a  more  unfit  one  could  hardly  have  been  selected.  We 
have  already  seen,  in  his  dealing  with  Dio  Chrysostom, 
that  the  simple  cry,  "  IJeligion  is  in  danger,"  rendered 
him  incompetent  to  see  through  and  adjust  an  ordinary 
business  account.  If,  vmknown  to  Trajan,  some  of  the 
Bithynian  plunderers  had  exercised  an  influence  in  hav- 
ing Pliny  appointed,  the  instance  would  1)0  but  one  of 
too  many  in  which  a  political  ring  operates  unseen  by  the 
public. 

Contractors,  whose  work  had,  by  connivance,  been  over- 
measured,^^^  office-holders,  who  had  appropriated  public 
moneys,  and  others  generally  wdio  were  concerned  in  de- 
frauding the  community,  knew  that  Pliny  had  been  sent 
to  correct  such  abuses,  and  that  his  self-love  would  make 
him  desire  the  reputation  of  having  accomplished  his 
mission.  They  needed,  therefore,  to  divert  his  attention, 
and  the  cry  which  they  raised  concerning  Christians 
effected,  doubtless,  their  purpose.  Tlie  province  was,  ac- 
cording to  Pliny's  statement,  full  of  Christians  belonging 

exercise  forethought  for  them.  .  .  .  Your  first  duty  will  be  to  exact 
account  of  public  matters,  for  it  is  plain  enough  that  they  are  out  of 
order."  —  Ibid.  10,  29,  2,  3.  These  letters  are  numbered  in  some  editions 
16  and  17. 

In  another  letter  (10,  40)  Pliny  mentions  that  condemned  criminals  had 
not  only  escaped  punishment,  but  been  put  into  salaried  offices.  Trajan 
responds  (10,  41)  that  Pliny  had  been  sent  to  correct  such  abuses. 

The  Bitliynians  had  previously  made  more  than  one  efl"ort  for  self- 
protection.  They  had  accused  one  of  their  proconsuls,  named  Bassus, 
of  bribery  and  extortion  (Pliny,  Jun.  4,  9).  Varenu.s,  who  aided  them 
in  tliis  prosecution,  may  possibly  have  done  so  from  interested  motives. 
He  became  their  procon.sul,  and  was  in  his  turn  the  subject  of  an  accusa- 
tion (Pliny,  Jun.  5,  20  ;  6,  13).  In  either  case  Pliny  aided  the  accii.sed, 
though  his  letters  render  their  guilt  probablt>. 

'^'•^  Pliny  asks  Trajan  (10,  28,  :)  for  a  surveyor,  or  measurer,  from 
Rome,  to  remeasure  public  works.  The  emperor  replies  (10,  29,  3)  that 
he  has  hardly  measurers  enough  for  works  in  Rome  and  its  vicinity. 
Some  insight  is  afforded  by  this  confession  into  the  industrial  condition 
of  Rome.     Cp.  (Ch.  IV.  n.  6)  remark  of  Josephus  on  mechanical  arts. 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE   OF  FIRST   CENTURY.  317 

to  every  rank  and  condition.  An  effort  to  extirpate  them 
would  of  course  give  him  plenty  to  do.  Some  accusa- 
tions, anonymous  or  otherwise,  may  have  been  prompted 
by  a  wish  of  delinquents  to  put  out  of  the  way  testimony 
which  could  not  be  rebutted.  Other  accusations,  after 
the  persecution  conmienced,  may  have  been  the  result  of 
private  grudge.  None  of  them,  if  we  consider  the  absence 
of  belief  in  heathenism  (see  note  110),  can  have  proceeded 
from  religious  motives. 

The  degree  to  which  Pliny  and  Trajan  were  influenced 
by  reverence  for  the  heathen  deities  receives  some  illus- 
tration from  the  fact  that  two  questions  addressed  l^y  the 
former  to  the  latter  received  contradictory  answers,^^^  and 
is  also  evinced  by  Pliny's  praise  of  his  uncle,^^*  a  decided 
atheist.^^^ 

Pliny  states,  with  no  intimation  of  doubt  as  to  its  cor- 
rectness, the  alleged  object  of  the  Christians,  that  they 
bound  themselves  to  rectitude  of  life ;  and  then  proceeds 
to  term  their  association  "a  depraved  and  extra \'agant 
superstition,"  super stiiioncm. pravam  d  immodicam}^^  The 
remark,  in  such  a  connection,  sounds  like  utter  block- 
headism.  Yet  the  main  object  of  Pliny's  letter  may  have 
been,  and  not  improbably  was,  to  obtain  imperial  indorse- 
ment for  avoidance  of  further  persecution.  His  natural 
feelings,  aided  doubtless  by  expressions  of  indignation 
from  the  better  portion  of  the  community,  were  likely  to 
cause  hesitation  in  the  work  wherein  treasur}'  delinquents 

^13  In  letters  58,  75",  of  Book  10,  we  have  Pliny's  propositions,  and  in 
letters  59,  76,  we  have  Trajan's  answers.  According  to  these  latter  it 
appears  that  gi-ound  dedicated  to  the  "Mother  of  the  Gods"  must  not 
interfere  with  city  improvements,  but  ground  dedicated  to  "  Claudius," 
the  deified  emperor,  could  not  be  diverted  from  sacred  uses.  The  former 
of  these  decisions  is  accompanied  by  a  statement,  that  the  soil  of  a  for- 
eign city  did  not  admit  a  dedication  which  would  be  binding  by  Roman 
law.  The  latter  decision  assumes  the  reverse.  Provincials  would  natu- 
rally infer  that  a  deified  emperor  was  more  to  be  revered  than  the  "Mother 
of  the  Gods." 

"*  See  letter  of  Pliny,  Jun.  6,  16. 

"5  Pliny,  Sen.  Nat.  Hist.  2,  5,  4. 

lis  Pliny,  Jun.  10,  97,  7,  8. 


318  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

and  others  had  involved  him.  His  meaning  might  be 
paraphrased  thus  :  "  I  should  like  to  escape  from  this 
predicament,  and  will  therefore  explain  to  the  emperor 
that  the  men  do  no  wrong.  I  should  dislike  to  be  thought 
an  untrue  patrician,  and  will  therefore  call  them  some 
opprobrious  names." 

13.  In  connection  with  Pliny's  letter  concerning  Chris- 
tians, two  questions  naturally  present  themselves.  Pliny 
speaks  of  Christians  as  being  denounced  to  him,  but  he 
does  not  mention  any  other  class  of  monotheists.  If  the 
accusation  had  come  from  Jews,  this  would  need  no  expla- 
nation, since  they  would  not  have  accused  their  own  con- 
verts. There  is,  however,  no  reason  to  think  that  Jews 
were  connected  with  it.  The  question  therefore  arises, 
Were  Christians  the  only  Gentile  monotheists  in  Bithy- 
nia  ?  And,  if  so,  what  caused  a  difference,  in  this  respect, 
between  that  province  and  Piome  ?  At  Ptome  we  have  seen 
that,  conjointly  with  Christians,  other  monotheists  were 
expelled.^^'^  Juvenal  also  mentions  conversions  to  Juda- 
ism.^^^  If  this  difference  between  Kome  and  Bithynia 
really  existed,  there  seems  but  one  plausible  explanation 
of  it.  At  Rome  the  aristocracy  had  cultivated  a  factitious 
reverence  for  antiquity.  This  reverence  might  incline 
many  Gentiles  towards  Judaism,  rather  than  towards 
Christianity,  on  the  ground  that  the  former  religion  was 
sanctioned  by  its  antiquity.  In  Bithynia,  if  no  such  fac- 
titious reverence  existed.  Christian  customs  would  have 


1"  See  notes  29,  44. 

118    "  Some  —  cliil<lren  of  a  father,  who  has  an  awe  for  sabbaths  — 

Adore  nothing  but  clouds  and  the  divinity  of  heaven. 

They  think  swine's  flesh  [for  food]  on  a  par  with  human. 

Their  father  did  not  touch  it.    After  while  they  circumcise  themselves. 

Accustomed  to  contemn  Roman  laws. 

They  learn,  observe,  and  feel  an  awe  for  Jewish  legislation, 

For  whatever  Moses  handed  down  in  his  secret  volume :  — 

Not  to  show  the  way,  save  to  one  of  the  same  faith. 

To  lead  only  circumcised  to  the  desired  fountain. 

His  father  is  responsible  ;  to  whom  each  seventh  day 

Was  idle,  and  disconnected  from  life's  interests." 

Juvenal,  Sat.  14,  06  - 106. 


§  IV.]  POSITION   AT   CLOSE    OF   FIRST   CENTURY.  319 

presented  to  a  Gentile  fewer  objections  than  Jewish  ones, 
whilst  the  teachings  of  Christianity  would  at  least  have 
proved  equally  acceptable  with  those  of  Judaism. 

It  deserves  note  that  a  Eoman  consul,  Flavins  Clemens, 
a  relative  of  Domitian,  sliould  have  been  executed  in 
A.  D.  95,  on  a  cliarge  of  atheism.  At  a  somewhat  later 
date  this  Avould  unquestionably  have  meant  that  he  was  a 
Christian."^     It  perhaps  meant  so  now. 

14.  A  second  question  arises  toucliing  the  name  "  Chris- 
tian." In  Asia  we  have  several  instances  of  its  use.^^^  In 
Europe,  as  we  learn  from  Tacitus,  the  common  people 
used  the  same  term.^^^  Among  other  classes  the  terms 
A-theist,  Unbeliever,  or  Galilean  ^^^  seem  to  have  pre- 
vailed. The  only  two  instances  in  Europe  where  the 
word  "  Christian  "  is  either  used,  or  its  use  implied,  are 
cases  in  which  an  accusation  was  probably  made  by 
Jews.^^  The  data  are  too  meagre  for  the  formation  of  a 
certain  opinion.  Yet  tliey  favor  the  supposition  that  where 
Jews  were  most  numerous,  and  the  expectation  of  a 
Christ  most  familiar,  the  term  "  Christian "  was  more 
generally  used  than  in  other  localities. 

"9  See  Appendix,  Note  B,  §  ii.  2. 

^25  Besides  Pliny's  letter  to  Trajan,  10,  97,  see  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
11,  26  ;  26,  28  ;  and  1  Peter  4,  16. 

i''^!  Quos  .  .  .  vuJcjus  Christianos  adjJcUabat,  "Those  whom  the  com- 
mon people  called  Christians." — Tac.  An.  15,  44. 

^22  See  quotations  from  Dio  Cassius  and  Justin  Martyr  in  Appendix, 
Note  B,  foot-notes  52,  53,  54.  Epictetus,  In  Dissertat.  4,  7,  6,  uses  the 
term  "Galileans."  At  a  date  when  the  term  "Christians"  must  already 
have  been  familiar  to  European  Jews,  that  is,  about  A.  n.  60,  we  find,  even 
in  Asia,  that  in  speaking  to  a  Roman  governor,  the  epithet  "Nazarene"  is 
adopted.  Paul  is  called  (Acts  24,  '))  "a  leader  of  the  party  of  the  Naza- 
renes,"  though  in  the  same  city  two  years  later  a  Jewish  monarch,  in  ad- 
dressing Paul  (Acts  26,  2?),  uses  the  term  "Christian." 

The  Martyrdom  of  Polycarp  evinces  (cc.  3,  9)  the  term  "A-theist"  to 
have  been  in  use  also  at  Smyrna  in  Asia. 

^  See  page  229,  also  note  189  of  Chapter  YIII. 


320  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  X. 


§v.     A.D.98- 117.     Trajan. 

Part  of  Trajan's  reign  lias  been  treated  under  the  pre- 
ceding section.  Pliny,  in  his  already-mentioned  letter  to 
Trajan,  says:  "I  have  never  been  present  at  examinations 
concerning  Christians."  This  may  either  have  referred  to 
examinations  prior  to  Trajan's  reign,  or  during  it.  If  the 
latter  be  Pliny's  meaning,  it  implies  that  the  Christians 
had  already,  l^efore  he  went  to  Bithynia,  suffered  in  some 
localities  because  the  reactionary  tendencies  of  Trajan's 
court  had  failed  to  protect  them.  Eusebius,  ^dio  wrote 
two  centuries  later,  mentions  that  local  persecutions  oc- 
curred under  Trajan,!^*  but  we  cannot  from  his  narrative 
infer  their  number,  extent,  or  chronological  order.  Hege- 
sippus,  an  earlier  writer  whom  he  quotes,  places  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  Simeon  about  a.  d.  116.  If  so,  it  probably  took 
place  during  the  Jewish  troubles  near  the  close  of  Trajan's 
reign.  The  "  Martyrdom  of  Ignatius  "  is  an  unreliable 
document,  written  probably  as  a  means  of  giving  currency 
to  the  epistles  forged  in  his  name.  Its  fabrication,  how- 
ever, renders  probable  the  existence  of  some  tradition 
that  Ignatiiis  had  been  martyred  in  Trajan's  time. 

Several  collisions  occurred  in  Trajan's  reign  between 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  or  between  Jews  and  the  imperial 

^-*  Eusebius,  Ecc.  Hist.  3,  32.  The  tendency  of  Trajan's  reign  favort^l 
patrieianism  perhaps  to  a  greater  extent  tlian  liis  judgment  or  inclination 
warranted.  A  coin  of  Trajan  (Ores.  7,  11,  note)  states  by  word  and  em- 
blem that  sacrifice  of  oxen  should  render  Rome  eternal.  Pliny  lauds  him 
{Panegi/r.  42,  2)  because  "  slaves  have  been  taught  their  duty.  They  fear, 
obey,  and  have  masters."  Yet  Pliny's  letter  (3,  14)  on  the  murder  of  a 
brutal  slaveholder  by  his  slaves,  indicates  the  result,  in  this  direction, 
of  patrician  tendencies.  Pliny  lands  Trajan  {Pancgyr.  36,  j)  because  the 
treasury  was  no  longer  guarded.  The  financial  and  official  condition  of 
Bithynia  as  described  by  himself  is  a  conmient  on  similar  neglect  tliere. 
Pliny,  in  consulting  Trajan  (A)»V.  10,  "l  ;  al.  66)  touching  one  whom 
Ti'ajan's  answer  (10,  72  ;  al.  67)  treats  as  lawlessly  enslaved,  mentions, 
among  cited  authorities,  the  "god"  Augustus,  the  "god"  Vespasian, 
the  "god  "  Titus,  but  it  is  noteworthy  that  a  decision  of  Domitian  out- 
weighed witli  Trajan  the  divine  ones. 


§v.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  98-117,  321 

forces.  The  scanty  records  left  us  throw  little  light  on 
the  cause  of  these  collisions.  The  reactionary  influences 
which  marked  the  reign  of  Trajan  render  not  improbable 
that  already  in  his  time  the  law  of  Domitian  and  Nerva, 
which  forbade  making  eunuchs,  had  been  misapplied  as  a 
prohibition  to  Jews  of  their  national  rite. 

In  the  year  115,  Antioch,  in  Syria,  had  the  unenviable 
honor  of  a  residence  within  its  walls  by  Trajan  and  his 
court.  The  city  was  full  of  soldiery  and  embassies,  and 
overrun  with  hangers-on  and  with  adventurers  from  every 
quarter  of  the  earth.  Suddenly  a  long-continued  earth- 
quake shook  the  city  to  its  foundations,  and  amidst  tlie 
crash  of  buildings,  the  fearful  loss  of  life,  and  the  man- 
gling of  human  limbs,  Trajan,  with  slight  injury,  was 
lielped  through  a  window  and  escaped  to  open  ground. 
Pedo,  the  consul,  was  killed.  Trees  were,  according  to 
Dio  Cassius,  uprooted  by  the  earthquake's  violence.^^^ 
A  rebellion  of  Jews  in  Gyrene  and  Egypt  and  the  island 
of  Cyprus  followed  soon  afterwards.  The  earthquake 
may  have  been  regarded  as  a  manifestation  of  divine  in- 
dignation towards  the  head  of  heathenism,  or  the  rebel- 
lion may  have  been  due  to  Eoman  acts  of  oppression. 

Of  the  brutalities  which  Dio  Cassius  attributes  to  the 
Jews  during  this  revolt,  some  are  such  obvious  fabrica- 
tions that  their  currency  among  heathens  implies  stupid 
or  vindictive  cred'ulity.^^^     Others  may  be  exaggerations 

^2'  Dio  Cassius  narrates  the  earthquake  and  its  attendant  circumstances 
in  Book  68,  chapters  24,  25. 

126  "Meanwhile  [after  the  Antioch  earthquake]  the  Jews  of  Cyrene, 
putting  at  their  head  a  certain  Andrew,  killed  the  Romans  and  Greeks, 
fed  on  their  ilesh,  distributed  (?)  their  entrails,  anointed  themselves  with 
their  blood,  and  clothetl  themselves  with  their  skins.  They  sawed  many 
in  two  from  their  head  downwards ;  others  they  gave  to  wild  beasts ; 
others  they  compelled  to  fight  [mortal]  duels ;  so  that  two  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  in  all  were  destroyed.  In  Egypt  they  did  many  similar 
things,  and  in  Cyprus  under  the  lead  of  Artemion.  Two  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  were  put  to  death  there.  And  on  this  account  it  is  not 
lawful  for  a  Jew  to  land  in  Cjq>rus ;  but  if  any  one  forced  by  the  wind  is 
driven  upon  the  island,  he  is  put  to  death.  Lucius,  sent  by  Trajan,  and 
also  other  generals,  subdued  the  Jews."  —  Dio  Cass.  68,  32.  Before 
14*  U 


322  JUDAISM    AT   ROME.  [CH.  X. 

of  actual  facts.  The  number  alleged  to  have  perished 
needs,  doubtless,  as  in  most  ancient  narratives,  a  very- 
great  reduction  to  render  it  truthful.^^' 

Eusebius  records  this  revolt  under  Trajan  without  as- 
cribing barbarities  to  the  Jews.^^^     He  wrote  at  a  date 

deciding  as  to  the  truthfulness  or  absurdity  of  the  foregoing,  the 
reader  will  do  well  to  compare  note  190  of  Chapter  VIII.  and  also  the 
following  extract  concerning  a  revolt,  during  our  own  time,  in  the  island 
of  Cuba:  "ia  Integridad  Nacioiial,  a  newspaper  published  in  Madrid, 
recently  contained  a  series  of  foul  slanders  against  Francis  Sanvalle,  the 
celebrated  naturalist,  and  owner  of  the  Regla  Slating  Foundry.  The 
slanders  were  that  Sanvalle  was  an  insurgent  general,  that  he  had  as- 
sassinated eleven  Spaniards,  that  he  then  caused  a  fire  of  fagots  to  be 
built,  on  which  were  placed  the  bodies  of  his  victims,  and  that,  when 
the  torch  was  applied,  himself  and  his  band  danced  ai'ound  the  blazing 
mass.  Sanvalle  is  incapable  of  such  barbarities.  He  is  an  American 
who  is  far  advanced  in  years,  devoted  to  his  science,  and  has  never 
meddled  in  the  revolution.  Throughout  the  island  he  is  much  respected 
because  of  his  accomplishments,  and  has  a  high  standing  in  social  and 
scientific  circles."  — New  York  Semi-Weekly  Tribune,  December 
2,  1870. 

1-^  Cfesar,  even,  who  has  been  thought  to  avoid  exaggeration,  states 
{Bell.  Gal.  1,  20)  the  number  of  his  enemies  —  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren—  at  three  hundred  and  sixty-eight  thousand  ;  and  in  another  place 
{Bell.  Gal.  7,  Ti;),  at  two  hundred  and  forty-eight  thousand.  Half  such  a 
nnmber  aggregated  in  one  neighborhood,  with  nothing  but  ancient  means 
of  transportation,  would  seem  likely  to  have  starved. 

128  «  rpjjg  conditfon  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  [Christian]  assembly, 
flourishing  more  and  more  daily,  made  progress,  whilst  Jewish  misfor- 
tune, owing  to  evil  upon  evil,  was  at  its  height.  Early  in  the  emperor's 
eighteenth  year  [a.  d.  115]  a  commotion  of  Jews  again  taking  place 
caused  destruction  to  a  great  multitude  of  them.  In  Alexandria  and 
the  remainder  of  Egypt  and  also  in  Cyrene,  being  inflamed  as, if  by  some 
fearful  revolutionary  spirit,  they  rushed  into  revolt  against  thoir  fellow- 
residents,  the  Greeks;  and  by  adding  greatly  to  the  revolt,  they  com- 
menced in  the  following  year  a  war  of  no  small  proportions,  Lupus  being 
then  in  command  in  Egypt.  In  the  first  contest  they  happened  to  get 
the  better  of  the  Greeks,  who  flying  into  Alexandria  seized  and  killed 
the  Jews  in  that  city. 

"The  Cj'renian  [Jews],  with  no  aid  from  these  [Egyptian]  ones,  steadily 
plundered  Egyptian  territory  and  overthrew  its  laws,  under  the  lead  of 
Lucuas ;  against  whom  the  emperor  sent  Marcius  Turbo  with  a  foot  and 


§v.]  CHKONOLOGICAL   NAKEATIVE,   A.  D.  98-117.  323 

when  no  friendly  feeling  existed  between  them  and  Chris- 
tians, nor  is  there  any  reason  for  supposing  that  such 
feeling  influenced  his  recital.  He  tells  us,  moreover,  that 
he  was  but  copying  verbally  from  heathen  records.  This 
causes  additional  distrust  of  the  atrocities  mentioned  by 
the  credulous  and  prejudiced  Dio. 

The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eusebius,  or  the  records 
quoted  by  it,  make  no  mention  of  the  revolt  in  Cyprus. 
His  Chronicon,  both  in  the  original  and  in  Jerome's  trans- 
lation, specifies  Salamis,  a  single  city  of  the  island,  as 
being  destroyed  and  its  inhabitants  killed  by  the  Jews. 
A  natural  inference  is,  that  the  other  cities  and  towns  of 
the  island  were  not  so  treated.  The  discord  of  a  seaport 
population  may  have  made  it  an  exception  to  the  course 
of  things  elsewhere. 

The  destruction,  or  expulsion,  of  the  ISIesopotamian 
Jews,  mentioned  by  Eusebius,  was  perhaps  a  military 
measure  connected  with  Trajan's  expedition  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  the  fear  of  their  attacking  their  neighbors  may 
have  been  a  fiction  to  justify  the  intended  procedure. 

There  is  extant  a  Sibylline  passage  which  may  have 
owed  its  origin  to  the  events  of  Trajan's  latter  years,^^^ 

naval  force  and  also  with  cavalry.  He,  carrying  the  war  against  them 
throngh,  with  many  battles  during  a  considerable  period  of  time,  de- 
stroyed many  myriads,  not  only  of  Cyrenian  but  also  of  Egyptian  Jews 
who  had  joined  their  king  Lucuas. 

"  The  emperor,  suspecting  that  the  Jews  in  Mesopotamia  were  about  to 
attack  the  inhabitants  there,  commanded  Lucius  Cyetus  (or  Quietus)  to 
clear  them  from  that  eparchy.  He,  drawing  together  an  army,  murdered 
a  large  number  of  them,  upon  which  success  he  was  appointed,  by  tlie 
emperor,  governor  of  Judaea. 

"  Greek  fthat  is.  Gentile]  writers  of  that  date  have  narrated  these 
matters  in  the  same  words."  —  Eusebius,  Ecc.  Hist.  4,  2. 
129     "There  shall  be  at  some  future  time  a  dry  sea, 
Ships  shall  no  longer  sail  to  Italy. 
Asia  then  shall  be  the  all-carrying  water ; 
And  the  plain  of  Crete  as  also  Cyprus  shall  suffer  much. 
And  Paphos  shall  bewail  a  terrible  fate,  so  that  [even] 
The  much-suffering  city  of  Salamis  shall  gaze  at  her." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  5, 447-4.')2. 

In  Book  4,  line  128,  the  destruction  conjointly  of  Salamis  and  Paphos 


324  JUDAISM  AT   KOME.  [CH.  X. 

tliougli  this  is  not  certain.  If  another  passage  in  the  note 
belong  to  the  same  period,  there  must  have  been  Jews 
who  were  thinking  more  of  Egypt's  conversion  than  of 
her  destruction. ^^*^ 

by  an  earthquake  is  mentioned.  In  that  connection  it  belongs  apparently 
to  Nero's  time. 

1^'  Sibylline  verses  prior  to  the  middle  of  the  first  century  seem  to 
have  been  written  exclusively  for  the  Roman  or  Italian  market;  see 
Appendix,  Note  A,  §  v.  3.  It  is  doulitful  even  whether  the  same  remark 
does  not  hold  good  concerning  them  until  about  the  close  of  that  century. 
If  these  verses  Avere  intended  to  operate  at  Rome,  they  may  date  before 
the  Christian  era.  If  they  were  intended  to  operate  in  Egypt,  they 
probably  belong  to  the  close  of  Trajan's  reign,  or  the  earlier  years  of 
Hadrian's. 

"  Isis,  thrice-wretclied  goddess,  thou  slialt  remain  solitary  by  the  Nile's 
water  ; 
A  disorderly  madwoman  on  the  sands  of  Acheron. 
No  longer  in  the  whole  earth  shall  remembrance  of  thee  remain. 
And  thou,  Serapis,  on  a  bed  of  stones  shalt  suffer  distress. 
Thou  shalt  lie,  the  greatest  ruin  in  tlnice-wretched  Egypt. 
All  who  led  the  desires  of  Egypt  towards  thee 
Shall  bewail  thee  bitterly.     But  such  as  put  immortal  understanding  in  their 

minds. 
As  many  as  earnestly  hymn  God,  shall  recognize  thee  as  nothing. 
And  some  one  of  the  priests,  a  linen-robed  man,  will  say  : 
'  Come,  let  us  set  apart  a  truly  beautiful  spot  for  God. 
Come,  let  us  change  the  liorrible  law  of  our  ancestors, 
Because  of  which  they  made  feasts  an<l  processions 
Senselessly  to  stone  and  earthenware  gods. 
Let  us  turn  our  hearts  and  earnestly  hymn  the  immortal  God, 
Tlie  Originator,  who  has  eternally  existed. 
The  true  Director  of  all  things,  their  King, 
The  life-sustaining  Originator,  the  Great  God,  who  endures  forever. 

And  then  in  Egypt  shall  a  mighty  temple  be  pure, 
And  into  it  a  God-begotten  people  shall  bring  sacrifices, 
And  God  will  grant  tlieni  to  live  immortally.' " 

Sibyl.  Orac.  5, 4S4  -  503. 

The  mention  of  a  future  temple  other  than  that  at  Jerusalem  is  equally 
remarkable,  whether  we  suppose  these  lines  to  have  been  written  before 
or  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus. 


§vi.J         CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.    117-13S.  325 

§  vi.     ^.  X>.  1 1 7  - 1 3  8.     Hadrian. 

Hadrian  on  his  accession,  aided  by  popular  indignation, 
reformed  many  abiises,^^^  repressed  a  patrician  conspiracy, 
executed  (Spartianus,  7,  8)  four  consular  senators,  and  lived 
as  a  result  in  fear  of  assassination,^^!^  anxious,  apparently, 
by  acts  of  folly  misnamed  ]3iety,  to  preclude  cliarges  of 
deserting  the  state  religion.^^^*^  When  misapplication  of 
a  benevolent  law  caused  the  Jews  to  rebel,  he  may  have 
feared  lest,  if  he  decided  in  their  favor,  he  should  be  stig- 
matized as  protector  of  '  Foreign  Eites,'  and  may  for  this 
reason  have  left  (see  Ch.  VII.  note  87)  all  responsibilit}'" 
to  the  judges.  The  rebellion  began  ^^^^  a.  d.  131  or  132, 
if  not  earlier  (before  the  death  of  Antinous  ?  Spartian.  13) 
and  may  have  been  preceded  by  local  outbreaks. 

Spartianus  states  that  circumcision  was  forbidden  to  the 
Jews,  and  that  this  prohibition  originated  the  rebellion.^32 
Die  Cassius  says  that  it  was  caused  by  Hadrian's  location 
of  a  Eoman  colony  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem,  and  his 
erection  of  a  temple  to  Jupiter  where  the  Jewish  one  had 


131  Hadrian  "relinquished  many  provinces  acquired  by  Trajan."  — 
Spartianus,  s.  '<  Going  through  tlie  provinces  he  punislied  procurators 
and  head  officers  for  their  deeds."  —  Spartian.  1-2.  "  He  forliade  killing 
of  slaves  by  their  masters  [cp.  note  124],  and  commanded  their  condem- 
nation by  judges  if  they  deserved  it.  ...  If  a  master  had  been  killed  at 
home  he  commanded  that  torture  should  not  be  applied  to  all  his  slaves, 
but  only  to  those  near  enough  to  be  aware  of  it.  —  Spartian.  17.  "  He 
separated  the  baths  for  the  sexes."  —  Ibid. 

131*  Hadrian  said  :  "  The  condition  of  emperors  is  miserable  who,  until 
killed,  are  not  believed  as  to  plots  against  them."  —  Gallicanus,  Avid. 
Cass.  2. 

131"  "  He  did  many  pious  acts  [cp.  Ch.  VI.  note  34]  through  fenr  lest 
what  had  happened  to  Domitian  should  result  to  him."—  Spartian.  lo. 

131°  Smith,  Diet,  of  Biog.  2,  321,  col.  2,  322,  col.  1  ;  3,  1378,  col.  2  ; 
Eusebius,  Chronicon,  Hadrian,  10. 

132  "Moverunt  ca  trmpcstatc  ct  Judxi  helium,  quod  vctahanturmutilare 
genitalia."  ~Sipa.xtia.nu&,  Hadrian,  13;  Scrijit.  Hist.  Jugust.  p.  12. 
Edicts  of  Domitian  and  Nerva  (see  notes  40,  45)  against  making  eunuchs, 
probably  used  the  term  mutilarc  genitalia,  which  patrician  judges  could 
nusapplj'  against  Jews. 


326  JUDAISM  AT  KOME.  [CH.  X. 

stood.^^  Probably  the  decree,  or  the  misapplication  of  it, 
mentioned  by  Spartianus,  originated,  and  the  facts  men- 
tioned by  Dio  gave  a  new  impulse  to,  the  war. 

133  »<  When  he  (Hadrian)  built  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem  a  city,  which 
he  called  iElia  Capitolina,  and  erected  on  the  site  of  [their]  God's  temple 
another  to  Jupiter,  a  war  was  excited  which  proved  of  no  small  dimensions 
nor  short  duration.  For  the  Jews,  treating  it  as  something  horrible  that 
other  races  should  be  colonized  in  their  city,  and  that  the  sacred  rites 
of  foreigners  should  be  established  in  it,  forbore  action  whilst  Hadrian 
was  present  in  jEgypt  and  afterwards  in  Syria.  But,  so  far  as  possible, 
they  purposely  made  the  arms  required  from  them  of  an  inferior  kind, 
that,  on  their  condemnation,  they  themselves  might  have  the  use  of  them. 
When  [Hadrian]  was  gone,  they  openly  revolted.  They  did  not  venture 
in  open  battle  any  desperate  attempt  against  the  Romans.  But  they  oc- 
cupied suitable  localities,  and  strengthened  them  by  underground  passages 
and  walls,  that  they  might  have  places  of  refuge  when  overcome,  and 
might  [have  room  to]  pass  each  other  unseen  beneath  the  ground.  Holes 
were  bored  upwards  to  admit  air  and  light. 

"  At  first  the  Romans  in  talking  made  light  of  them.  But  when  all 
Judaea  was  in  commotion,  and  the  Jews  were  everywhere  in  disturbance 
and  holding  meetings,  and  had  "done  much  mischief  to  the  Romans  both 
privately  and  publicly,  and  when  many  of  other  races  had  from  the 
desire  of  gain  [?]  assisted  them,  and  all  the  inhabited  world,  thus  to 
speak,  was  in  commotion,  then  Hadrian  sent  against  them  his  best  com- 
manders, of  whom  the  most  prominent  was  Julius  Severus.  He  was 
despatched  against  the  Jews  from  Britain,  which  he  governed. 

"He  at  first  nowhere  ventured  a  conflict  with  his  opponents,  because 
of  their  number  and  desperation,  but  by  taking  them  singly  [that  is,  in 
small  bodies]  with  a  multitude  of  [his  own]  soldiers  and  officers,  and  cut- 
ting off  their  provisions  and  shutting  them  up,  he  was  enabled,  more 
slowly,  indeed,  but  with  less  danger,  to  crush,  wear  out,  and  cut  them 
off.  But  few,  therefore,  altogether  escaped.  Fifty  of  their  most  con- 
siderable strongholds  and  nine  hundred  and  eighty-five  of  their  most 
noted  villages  were  thoroughly  destroyed,  and  five  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  men  were  killed  by  onslaughts  and  in  battles.  The  number 
destroyed  by  hunger,  disease,  and  fire  could  not  be  ascertained.  All 
Judaia,  Avith  slight  exception,  was  rendered  a  desert,  as  already  before  the 
war  had  been  foreshown  to  tliem  [the  Jews].  For  the  sepulchre  of  Solo- 
mon, which  they  regard  as  one  of  their  sacred  structures,  went  to  pieces 
of  its  own  accord  and  fell  ;  also  many  wolves  and  hyenas  made  forays, 
howling,  into  their  cities.     But  many  also  of  the  Romans  perished  in 


§vi.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAKRxVTIVE,  A.  D.  117-138.  327 

The  contest,  so  far  as  carried  on  outside  of  Judaa,  must 
have  had  one  peculiarity  of  a  civil  war.  It  was  not  a 
conflict  between  contiguous  or  remote  nations,  but  be- 
tween neighbors.  Further,  the  moral  and  religious  influ- 
ence of  the  Jews  was  likely,  in  the  outset  of  the  contest, 
to  give  them  many  friends  and  sympathizers  among  such 
heathens  as  could  appreciate  rightness  of  life.  This  sym- 
pathy must  have  been  increased  by  the  obvious  denial 
of  a  long-recognized  religious  liberty,  and  by  the  inten- 
tional insult  to  Jewish  feeling  in  the  erection  of  a  temple 
to  Jupiter  at  Jerusalem  when  Jupiter  himself  had,  among 
nearly  all  intelligent  heathens,  become  obsolete,  save  as 
a  means  of  tormenting  Jews  and  Christians.  Some  hea- 
thens may,  as  Dio  Cassius  says,  have  aided  the  Jews  from 
love  of  gain,  but  it  is  probable  that  others  from  a  sense 
of  justice  gave  them  support,  and  that  still  others,  who 
refrained  from  supporting,  gave  them,  from  motives  of 
justice  or  humanity,  protection.  In  some  localities  each 
man's  hand  must  have  been  against  his  neighbor. ^^ 

this  war.  Wherefore  Hadrian,  when  he  wrote  to  the  Senate,  did  not  use 
the  preface  customary  from  emperors  :  '  If  you  and  your  children  are  in 
health,  it  is  well.     I  and  the  armies  are  in  health.' 

"  He  sent  Severus  [after  the  war]  into  Bithynia,  which  had  no  need  of 
arms,  but  of  a  just  and  wise  ruler  and  presiding  officer  who  had  resolu- 
tion ;  all  w-hich  qualifications  belonged  to  Severus.  And  [Severus]  so 
conducted  and  administered  private  and  public  matters,  that  even  to  the 
present  time  mention  is  constantly  made  of  him.  But  to  the  Senate  and 
to  the  lot  Pamphylia  was  conceded  instead  of  Bithynia."  —  Dio  Cass. 
69,  1-2-14. 

This  last  remark  implies,  apparently,  that  the  senators  considered  it 
their  special  privilege  to  plunder  Bithynia  and  supply  their  friends  with 
offices  at  its  expense.    They  had  to  be  indemnified  with  another  province. 

^**  The  book  found  in  the  Apocrypha  of  the  Old  Testament  under  the 
title  of  2d  Esdras  was  written  (see  Appendix,  Note  E)  in  the  time  of 
Hadrian.  Some  of  its  passages  have  much  that  is  apposite  to  a  state 
of  things  which  we  could  infer  without  it.  The  following  extract  is 
from  the  common  version,  except  verse  26,  for  which  I  have  substituted 
the  corresponding  verses  (4,  30,  31)  in  Laurence's  translation  from  the 
Ethiopic. 

"  And  suddenly  shall  the  sown  places  appear  unsown,  the  full  store- 


328  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  X. 

In  the  Second  Book  of  Esdras  are  found  questionings  ^^ 

houses  shall  suddenly  be  found  empty,  and  the  trumpet  shall  give  a 
sound,  which  when  every  man  heareth  they  shall  be  sudilenly  afraid  [or 
startled].  At  that  time  shall  friends  fight,  one  against  anothek, 
LIKE  ENEMIES,  and  the  earth  shall  stand  in  fear,  with  those  that  dwell 
therein,  the  sjjrings  of  the  fountains  shall  stand  still,  and  in  three  houi's 
[Ethiopic,  "three  years"]  they  shall  not  run. 

"Whosoever  remaineth,  from  all  these  things  that  I  have  told  thee, 
shall  escape  and  see  my  salvation  at  the  end  of  your  [Ethio])ic,  "  the"] 
world.  In  that  day  they  shall  behold  those  men  [Enoch  and  Elijah]  who 
have  ascended  [into  heaven]  without  tasting  death  from  their  birth. 

' '  The  hearts  of  those  who  dwell  in  the  world  shall  be  changed,  and 
another  heart  be  given  to  them.  For  evil  shall  be  put  out  and  deceit  shall 
be  quenched.  As  for  faith,  it  shall  flourish,  corruption  shall  be  overcome, 
and  the  truth  which  hath  been  so  long  without  fruit  shall  be  declared." 
2  Esdras,  6,  22  -  28  ;  Laurence's  trans.  4,  2')  -  32. 

A  similar  reference  to  this  conflict  of  neighbors  exists  in  the  preceding 
chaj)ter.     It  is  here  given  in  the  translation  of  Laurence  :  "  Friends 

OPPOSED   TO    FRIENDS   SHALL   DESTROY   EACH  OTHER.       Wisdom    shall    in 

that  day  be  concealed  and  understanding  be  withdrawn  to  her  secret  resi- 
dence ;  while  many  shall  seek  but  shall  not  find  her  ;  and  iniquity  and 
folly  shall  be  multiplied  on  the  earth."  —  2  Esdras,  3,  U,  15;  correspond- 
ing to  the  common  version,  5,  9,  10. 

In  yet  another  passage  these  conflicts  are  represented  as  unoonti'olled 
by  military  or  civil  authority.  "Woe  to  the  world  and  them  that  dwell 
therein,  .  .  .  for  there  shall  be  sedition  among  men  and  invading  one 
another.  They  shall  not  regard  their  kings  nor  princes  [i.  e.  their  leaders] 
and  the  course  of  their  actions  shall  stand  in  their  [own]  power.  A  man 
shall  desire  to  go  into  a  city  and  shall  not  be  able.  ...  A  man  shall 
have  no  pity  upon  his  neiglibor,  but  shall  destroy  their  houses  with  the 
sword,  and  spoil  their  goods  because  of  the  lack  of  bread  and  for  great 
tribulation."  —  2  Esdras,  15,  14-19.  The  two  concluding  chapters,  of 
which  this  extract  forms  a  part,  are  not  found  in  theEtliiopic  nor  Arabic. 
The  destitution,  mentioned  in  verse  19,  would  necessarily  be  more  severe 
at  the  close  than  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

135  "Are  theirdeeds,  then,  any  better  which  inhabit  Babylon,  that  they 
should  therefore  have  the  dominion  over  Sion  ?  ...  Is  there  any  other 
people  that  knoweth  thee  besides  Israel  ?  Or  what  race  hath  so  believed 
thy  covenants  as  Jacob  ?  And  yet  their  reward  appeareth  not  and  their 
labor  hath  no  fruit :  for  I  have  gone  here  and  therethrough  the  heathen, 
and  I  see  that  they  flow  in  wealth,  and  think  not  upon  thy  command- 


§  VI.]  CHRONOLOGICAL   NARRATIVE,   A.  D.  117-138.  329 

and  hopes,^^^  such  as  were  not  unnatural  in  a  Jewish 
mind  after  the  terrible  struggle.  The  edict,  or  misappli- 
cation of  law,  against  circumcision,  must  either  have 
been  repealed,  or,  which  is  more  probable,  allowed  to 
sleep,  for  the  Jews  retained  their  rite  in  the  second  cen- 
tury as  ever  since.  Hadrian  may  have  found  that  the 
cost  of  executing  it  would  be  too  much.  The  bitterness 
which  gTCW  up  during  the  prolonged  conflict  can  be  in- 
ferred from  passages  of  2  Esdras,^^'^  but  can  best  be 
judged  by  its  effects.  To  these  we  will  attend  in  the  next 
chapter. 

The  Psalms  of  Solomon  contain  allusions  which  iden- 
tify them,  or  a  portion  of  them,  as  belonging  to  the  pres- 
ent period.^^^  They  throw  some,  though  but  little,  light 
upon  it. 

ments.  Weigh  thou,  therefore,  our  wickedness  in  the  balance,  and  theirs 
also  that  dwell  in  the  world  ;  and  so  shall  thy  name  nowhere  be  found 
but  in  Israel.  Or  when  was  it  that  they  which  dwell  upon  the  earth  have 
not  sinned  in  thy  sight  ?  Or  what  people  hath  so  kept  thy  command- 
ments ?  Thou  shalt  find  that  Israel  by  name  hath  kept  thy  precepts  ; 
but  not  the  heathen.  ...  It  was  not  my  mind  to  be  curious  of  the  high 
things,  but  of  such  as  pass  by  us  daily,  namely,  wherefore  Israel  is  given 
up  as  a  reproach  to  the  heathen,  and  for  what  cause  the  people  whom 
thou  hast  loved  is  given  over  unto  ungodly  nations,  and  why  the  law  of 
our  forefathers  is  brought  to  nought,  and  the  written  covenants  cojne  to 
none  effect."  —  2  Esdras,  3,  28,  32  -3G ;  4,  23. 

1^  See  extracts  from  2  Esdras  on  pp.  131  -  134. 

1^  See  the  mention  of  Jewish  suffering  quoted  on  page  131  in  note  38, 
from  Laurence's  translation  of  Ezra,  10,  32-34  (Lat.  vers.  10,  22). 

1^  The  Psalms  of  Solomon  are  published  in  Eabricius,  Codex  Pseude- 
jngraphus  Veteris  Tcstamenti,  1,  pp.  917-972.  One  of  them  attributes 
the  sufferings  of  the  Jews  to  their  sins  :  "  They  have  omitted  no  sin  which 
they  have  not  perpetrated  even  more  than  the  Gentiles.  Therefore  God 
.  .  .  brought  the  Hardstriker  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." — Ps.  8, 
14  - 16.  The  allusion  is,  doubtless,  to  Julius  Severus,  brought  from  Bri- 
tain to  put  do^vn  the  Jews. 

In  another  Psalm  it  is  said  :  "The  blast  has  desolated  our  land  of  its 
inhabitants.  It  has  carried  off  together  the  young  man  and  the  old,  and 
their  children,  .  .  .  and  all  things  which  were  done  in  Jerusalem  as  the 
Gentiles  do  in  their  cities  to  their  gods."  — Ps.  17,  13  and  16. 

These  passages  compared  with  each  other  seem  to  attribute  the  mis- 


330  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  XI. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

EFFECTS   OF   THE  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN. 

§  I.    Direct  Effects. 

In  enumerating  the  direct  and  indirect  effects  of  this 
Jewish  revolt,  we  shall  pass  over  such  matters  as  the 
exhumed  picture  belonging  to  Hadrian's  time/  and  con- 
fortunes  of  Jerusalem  and  Judtea  to  tlie  fact  that  a  portion  of  the  Jews 
fraternized  with  and  imitated  heathens,  and  God  was  determined  to  have 
no  half-way  worshippers.  Not  impossibly  such  men  are  alluded  to  ia 
Ps.  4,  verse  7,  as  "living  hypocritically  with  the  righteous,"  and  in  verse 
8  as  "  man-pleasers,"  and  inverse  10  as  "a  man-pleaser,  who  utters  the 
Law  deceitfully." 

The  probable  explanation  of  this  is,  that  Jews  of  the  ultra  conservative 
stamp  at  Jerusalem  had,  whilst  the  war  was  in  embryo,  endeavored,  by 
extra  complaisance  towards  heathenism,  to  avert  the  storm.  Some  may, 
equally  with  Herod  in  the  times  of  Augustus  or  Herod  Agrippa  in  the 
reign  of  Claudius,  have  been  willing  to  half-heathenize  themselves.  Of 
this  class  were  those  who  endeavored  to  throw  the  blame  of  any  commo- 
tion upon  the  Christians.  The  reader  will  find,  under  Note  B  of  the  Ap- 
pendix, in  foot-note  53,  a  message  from  Jews,  certainly  of  this  class,  which, 
whether  it  belong  to  the  times  of  Trajan  or  Hadrian,  would  seem  supei'- 
fluous,  unless  there  were  a  desire  to  exonerate  themselves  at  the  exjjense 
of  Christians. 

1  In  tlie  Cleveland  Daily  Herald  for  March  31,  1S60,  is  a  commu- 
nication founded  on,  or  copied  from,  a  letter  of  Lewis  Cass,  Jr.  It 
states  that  on  the  Palatine  Hill,  among  ruins  of  the  "  House  of  (Jold  of  tlie 
Caesars,"  had  been  found,  scratched  on  a  wall,  a  picture  of  a  crueilied 
human  figure  with  an  ass-head.  To  the  left  is  a  man  with  one  hand 
raised,  and  below  is  the  inscription,  "Alexander  adores  God." 

Merivale,  in  his  Histm-ii  of  the  Romans  (Vol.  6,  p.  442,  note  I),  copies 
from  the  Dublin  RevieAW  for  March,  1857,  essentially  the  same  ac- 
count, but  with  the  subscription,  'AXe|d/xej'os  ffl^erai  Oebv,  "  Alexamenus 
recognizes  (or  reverences)  God,"  and  says  that  it  was  exhumed  on  the 
Aventine  Hill. 

The  former  article  says,  that  the  chamber  containing  the  picture,  and 


§  I.]      EFFECTS    OF  JEWISH   REVOLT    UNDER   HADRIAN.      331 

fine  ourselves  to  such  as  affected  society  or  literature.  To 
do  this,  we  again  interrupt  the  chronological  narrative. 

1.     GNOSTICS,  OR  ANTI-JEWISH  CHRISTIANS. 

First  on  our  list  stand  The  Gnostics,  two  bodies  of 
Christians  strikingly  unlike  each  other,  who  sprung  into 
existence  during  or  immediately  after  the  war.^  They 
held  in  common  this  prominent  and  distinguishing  view. 
The  God  of  the  Jews  is  not  the  God  of  Christians,  but  a 
different  and  less  perfect  being.^     They  lasted  until  sur- 

tliat  portion  of  the  palace  to  which  it  belongs,  were  ' '  built  by  Hadrian, 
as  the  bricks,  of  which  it  is  chiefly  composed,  attest.  They  are  impressed 
with  the  names  and  titles  of  the  consuls  Pactinus  and  Apronicanus 
[Pajtinus  and  Apronianus,  A.  D.  123]."  If  so,  the  picture  is  probably 
some  sarcasm  on  a  Jew,  or  on  the  Jews.  Crucifixion  of  their  leaders,  or 
of  themselves,  may  have  suggested  a  representation  of  their  alleged  god 
(see  Ch.  X.  note  98)  as  having  been  crucified. 

2  Historical  evidence  places  their  origin  in  the  time  of  Hadrian.  The 
war  is  the  only  occurrence  during  his  reign  which  can  account  for  them. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  says:  "In  the  times  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian 
appeared  those  who  devised  heresies,  and  they  continued  until  the  age  of 
the  elder  Antoninus." —  Clem.  Alex.  Slroyn.  7,  §  106,  p.  898.  Clement 
enumerates  Basilides,  Valentinus,  and  Marcion  as  contemporaries.  Ter- 
tullian  states  {Adv.  Marc.  1,  19)  that  Marcion  came  from  Pontus  to  Rome 
in  the  reign  of  the  elder  Antoninus,  though  he  does  not  know  in  what 
year.  Elsewhere  {De  Prcscriptione  Hceretkorum,  30)  he  says  that  Mar- 
cion and  Valentinus  belonged  to  the  time  of  Antoninus.  Irenceus 
{Against  Heresies,  3,  4,  .3)  seems  to  imply  that  Valentinus  came  to  Rome 
before  the  time  of  Antoninus  Pius,  in  whose  reign  he  became  prominent. 
These  men  were  most  prominent,  therefore,  in  the  reign  which  began 
immediately  after  the  war  closed.  Samuel,  the  Armenian  chronologist, 
places  Valentinus  and  Cerdo,  a  Marcionite,  about  four  years  before 
Hadrian's  death.  Cerdo  came  to  Rome  before  Marcion.  The  Chronicon 
of  Eusebius  places  Basilides  about  the  same  time,  and  the  close  of  the 
war  a  year  or  two  later. 

^  Mr.  Norton,  in  his  work  on  the  Genuineness  of  the  Gos27cls,  Vol.  2 
pp.  24-28  (first  edition),  has  collected  evidence  of  the  above  statements. 
From  his  work  (pp.  27,  28)  the  following  is  copied:  — 

"  'I  will  endeavor,'  says  Origen  {Aimd  Pamphili  Mart.  Apolog.  pro 
Origene ;  in  Origen.  0pp.  4,  Append,  p.  22),  '  to  define  who  is  a  heretic. 


332  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  XI. 

vivors  of  the  struggle,  with  the  recollection  of  its  bit- 
terness, had  passed  away,  and  then  they  died  out.  No 
satisfactory  explanation  of  their  existence  can  be  offered, 
except  that  they  were  the  result  of  the  war.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  their  origin  was  due  to  any  literary  infkience, 
since  their  mental  tendencies  were  extremely  divergent. 
They  could  not  have  originated  in  any  merely  local  influ- 
ence, since  they  sprung  up  in  widely  separated  localities. 

To  appreciate  this  let  the  reader  imagine  to  himself 
one  class  —  the  Valentinians,  from  Alexandria  in  Egypt 
—  as  extravagant  idealists,  whose  peculiarities  of  language 
were  such  as  not  to  admit  translation  into  our  or  into  any 
other  tongue ;  men  who  invented  a  fanciful  phraseology, 
using  the  same  word  in  two  or  more  senses,  thereby  con- 
cealing their  inconsistencies  from  themselves  and  from 
such  others  as  pretended  to  understand  them.  Let  him 
next  imagine  another  class  —  the  Marcionites  from  Pon- 
tus  of  Asia  Minor  —  as  plain  even  to  bluntness  in  their 
speech  and  as  accommodating  their  teachings  to  the  sim- 
plest minds. 

The  Valentinians,  in  reconciling  the  Gospels  with  their 
system,  escaped  difficulties  partly  by  ignoring  them  and 
partly  by  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  passages,  that  is, 
by  ascribing  to  them  meanings  not  suggested  by  the  con- 
text, nor  perhaps  by  anything  else  save  the  interpreter's 
fancy.  Marcion  felt  bound  to  face  difficulties,  even  at  the 
cost  of  forced  interpretation  and  the  pruning-knife.* 

All  who  profess  to  believe  in  Christ,  and  yet  affirm  that  there  is  one  God 
of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  and  another  of  the  Gospels,  and  maintain 
that  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  not  he  who  was 
proclaimed  by  the  Law  and  the  Projihets,  but  another,  I  know  not  what, 
God,  wholly  unknown  and  unheard  of,  — all  such  we  consider  as  heretics, 
however  they  may  set  off  their  doctrines  with  different  fictions.  Such 
are  tlie  followers  of  Marcion,  and  Yalentinus,  and  Basilid(!s.'  " 

*  A  word  of  explanation  must  precede  Marcion's  doings  and  interpre- 
tations, so  that  readers  unfamiliar  with  Gnosticism  may  see  their  object. 
He,  in  common  with  the  other  branch  of  Gnostics,  believed  matter  to  be 
evil.  He  could  not,  therefore,  ascribe  to  Jesus  a  physical  body,  without 
ascribing  to  this  portion  of  him  imperfection.  Instead  of  building  up, 
as  did  the  other  branch  of  Gnostics,  a  fanciful  explanation,  he  cut  away 


§1.]      EFFECTS   OF  JEWISH   KEVOLT  UNDER  HADRIAN.        333 

The  Valentinians,  tlioiigli  using  all  four  Gospels,  seem 
to  have  made  most  use  of  John's.    Marcion  assumed  that 


the  earlier  years  of  our  Saviour's  history  and  began  nearly  as  follows : 
"  In  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius  Caesar,  Christ  Jesus,  a  saving  spirit, 
deigned  (?)  to  descend  from  heaven  (TertuUian,  Adv.  Marc.  1,  19)  into 
Capernaum,  a  city  of  Galilee."  —  TertuU.  Adv.  Marc.  4,  7.  In  an  omitted 
portion  of  this  last  passage  dcum  is  sometimes  incorrectly  substituted  for 
eum,  which  would  make  the  two  passages  conflict. 

In  accordance  with  the  above,  the  words  recorded  by  Matthe'TO'  12, 48, 
"Who  is  my  mother  ?  and  who  are  my  bretln-en?"  were,  by  Marcion,  in- 
terpreted as  meaning,  I  have  no  parents,  "  I  was  not  born." —  Tertull. 
Adv.  Marc.  4,  10. 

In  Luke  22,  70,  "All  [the  chief  priests  and  scribes]  said,  'You  are, 
therefore,  the  Son  of  God,'  "  that  is,  the  Messiah  whom  OUR  God  is  to 
send.  The  answer  of  Jesus,  "Ye  say  that  I  am,"  was  interpreted  by 
Marcion  (Tertull.  Adv.  Marc.  4,  41 )  as  meaning,  "/have  not  said  so." 
^Marcion,  it  may  be  remarked,  believed  that  the  Jewish  Deity  would  yet 
send  HIS  Messiah  to  his  peculiar  people. 

The  voice  from  heaven  (Luke  9,  35),  "  This  is  my  beloved  son,  hear 
HIM,"  meant,  according  to  Marcion  (TertulL  Adv.  Marc.  4,  22),  "Do  not 
listen  to  Moses  and  Elijah,"  who  are  present  with  him. 

The  foregoing  were  intended  as  solutions  of  difficulties.  Other  pas- 
sages, which  ]\Iarcion  understood  as  directly  inculcating  his  views,  may 
interest  the  reader. 

In  Matthew  9,  16,  and  Mark  2,  21,  are  the  words  of  Jesus :  "No  one 
puts  a  patch  of  new  cloth  ujion  an  old  garment."  TertuUian's  argument 
(^Adv.  Marc.  3,  16)  implies,  without  affirming,  that  Marcion  understood 
Jesus  as  thereby  alleging  a  total  absence  of  connection  between  his  rev- 
elation and,  not  merely  the  customs  of  the  Jews,  but  the  revelation  made 
to  them. 

According  to  Luke  10,  22,  Jesus  says,  "No  one  knoweth  who  the  Son 
is  save  the  Father,  and  who  the  Father  is  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom 
the  Son  may  wish  to  reveal  him."  Tertullian  {Adv.  Marc.  4,  25)  quotes 
the  comment  of  Marcion  on  this  :  "And  so  Christ  preached  a  [previously] 
unknown  God."  Other  heretics,  according  to  Tertullian,  laid  stress  on 
the  same  passage,  " Hinc  enim  ct  alii  Hxrctici  fulciuntur."  By  other 
heretics  he  means,  as  his  context  implies,  other  Gnostics. 

One  passage  of  Paul,  if  disconnected  from  much  of  his  other  teach- 
ing, could  be  readily  construed  to  favor  Gnostic  views.  He  speaks  in 
2  Corinth.  4,  4,  of  those  "in  whom  the  god  of  this  world  (or  '  of  this 
age ')  hath  blinded  the  minds  of  the  unbelieving  so  that  they  cannot  see 


334  JUDAISM  AT   EOME.  [CII.  XL 

Luke,  the  companion  of  Paul,  would  be  most  free  from 
Jewish  prejudices.  He  adopted,  therefore,  his  narrative 
as  a  basis,  expunging  from  it  what  he  deemed  Jewish  mis- 
conceptions or  additions,  and  incorporating  into  it  from 
the  other  Gospels  such  passages  as  he  could  press  into 
his  service. 

IMarcion  believed  in  three  heavens,  the  system  alluded 
to  by  Paul  in  2  Cor.  12,  2.  He  deemed  the  uppermost, 
or  third,  heaven  the  residence  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and 
a  lower  one  that  of  the  Jewish  God.^  The  Valentinians 
believed,  in  accordance  with  Alexandrine  views,  that  the 
earth  was  spanned  by  seven  heavens.  These,  equally  with 
the  earth,  were,  in  their  view,  created  by  the  Jewish  Deity 
who  dwelt  in  or  over  the  seventh  heaven.  Above  the 
heavens,  separated  by  an  immense  "  Middle  Space,"  was 
the  Pleroma,  or  "  Fulness,"  where  the  Supreme  Being 
dwelt.     It  was  doubtless  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars.^ 

Marcion  held  the  popular  view  concerning  the  under- 
world as  a  subterranean  cavern.  The  Valentinians  deemed 
our  earth  the  underworld,  or  realm  of  darkness.^ 

the  light  of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ."  TertuUian  (Adv.  Marc.  5,  ll) 
tells  us  that  Marcion  understood  the  god  of  this  world  to  be  the  Creator, 
or  God  of  the  Jews. 

^  See  "Belief  of  the  First  Three  Centuries  concerning  ClirisCs  Mission 
to  the  Underworld,"  §  XXI.  2,  pp.  109,  110  ;  3d  edit.  pp.  104  -106.  Mr. 
Norton  {Genuineness,  1st  edit.  2,  pp.  21,  22;  abridged  edit.  p.  170)  as- 
cribes to  Marcion  a  belief,  in  common  with  Valentinians,  in  a  Pleroma. 
This  is  an  error.  Its  correction  does  not  impair,  and  might  be  regarded 
as  slightly  strengthening,  his  main  argument.  The  super-terrestrial  sys- 
tem of  IMarcion  was  entirely  unlike  that  of  the  Valentinians. 

^  Compare  Underworld  Mission,  Appendix,  Note  C.  The  term  "Ple- 
roma "  was  probably  given  to  the  supposed  sphere  or  heaven  of  the  fixed 
stars,  because  all  within  it  was  thought  to  be  full  of  the  material  universe 
and  of  God ;  while  beyond  it  was  a  measureless  void.  See  Cicero,  De 
Eepitb.  6,  10;  Somn.  Scip.  4;  0pp.  Philos.  5,  pp.  379,  410.  Also  Diog. 
Laert.  Zcno,  70  ;  edit.  Huebner,  2,  p.  180  ;  Bohn's  trans,  p.  310.  Cicero 
copies  evidently  from  Stoic  or  monotheistic  sources.  The  Valentinian 
Ocjdoad  of  ^ons  (cp.  note  52)  was  mentally  connected  no  doubt  with 
their  Ogdoad  (Middle  Space)  dwelling-place.     Cp.  Und.  Mission,  p.  124. 

^  For  Marciou's  view,  see  Underworld  Mission,  pp.    118,   119,   127  ; 


§  1.]        EFFECTS   OF  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      335 

The  IVrarcionites  were  ascetics,  even  to  the  renunciation 
of  marriage.^  The  Valentinians  aimed  extravagantly  at 
festhetics  and  spiritualism.  Their  appreciation  of  the 
affections  is  shown  by  their  regarding  a  man  as  to  be 
pitied  who  could  pass  through  life  without  loving  and 
marrying  some  woman.^ 

Marcionites  met  torture  or  death,  for  their  faith,  as  un- 
flinchingly as  other  Christians.^^  The,  Valentinians  are 
said  to  have  been  less  faithful  in  this  particular. 

Valentinians  regarded  mankind  as  divisible,  according 
to  tlieir  separate  natures,  into  three  classes.  These  were, 
firstly,  the  material ;  ^^  secondly,  the  i[/vxlkoi,  that  is,  the 


3d  edit,  pp.  113,  114,  121,  122.     For  that  of  the  Valentinians,  see  the 
same  work,  pp.  24-27,  128,  129;  3d  edit.  pp.  23-26,  122-124. 

"  TertuU.  Adv.  Marc.  5,  7  ;  0^).  p.  588,  C.  Cp.  Iren.  1,  28,  l  ;  Clem. 
Alex.  Strom.  3,  12.  Tlieir  abstinence  from  life's  real,  or  supposed,  enjoy- 
ments was  not  connected,  like  asceticism  of  later  date,  with  abstinence 
from  industry. 

^  The  Valentinians  deem  a  man  "degenerate  nee  legitivium  veritatis, 
and  not  a  legitimate  Christian,  who,  having  lived  in  the  world,  shall  not 
have  loved  a  woman  nor  united  her  to  himself." — Tertull.  Adv.  Valentin. 
30 ;  0pp.  p.  301  D. 

w  Iilr.  Norton  {Genuineness,  1st  edit.  2,  pp.  122,  123;  abridged  edit, 
pp.  225,  226)  has  cited  testimony  to  Marcionite  fidelity  and  to  that  of 
some  among  Valentinians.  The  Letter  from  the  churehes  at  Lyons  and 
Vienne,  in  Gaul,  contains  mention  of  a  Marcionite  martyrdom  which  I 
do  not  remember  to  have  seen  noticed  in  modern  histories.  "  Blandina 
was  again  brought  in  with  a  Marcionite  (literally  '  with  a  Pontian ')  boy 
about  fifteen  years  old.  These  w-ere  daily  brought  in  to  see  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  others,  and  efforts  were  made  to  compel  their  swearing  by 
heathen  idols.  .  .  .  The  Marcionite,  .  .  .  nobly  enduring  every  suff"er- 
ing,  gave  up  the  spirit." — Euseb.  Eec.  Hist.  5,  l;  edit.  Heinichen, 
Vol.  2,  pp.  30-32.  If  the  letter  be,  as  I  should  judge,  from  semi- 
Jewish  Christians,  it  came  from  those  who,  as  a  class,  were  not  ovei'- 
prone  to  praise  Marcionites. 

11  Mr.  Norton's  abstract  of  Valentinian  views  en  this  subject  will  be 
found  in  his  work,  Vol.  2,  p.  160,  1st  edit.  As  Irenfeus  states  {Adv. 
Eceres.  1,  5,  5),  that  the  material  man  was  formed,  not  from  earth,  but 
from  v\ri,  or  chaotic  matter,  it  is  possible  that  their  term  for  this  class 
was  intended  to  include  men  of  "  chaotic  "  behavior  and  violent  temper, 
equally  as  the  grovelling. 


336  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  XL 

merely  rational,  or  "  matter-of-fact,"  persons  ;  and  thirdly, 
the  spiritual.  Marcion  made  no  such  distinction,  and 
would  seem  to  have  regarded  all  men  as  brethren. 

Valentinians  held,  in  common  with  other  Alexandrine 
heretical  and  non-heretical  Christians,  that  certain  truths 
should  be  reserved  for  the  enlightened.  Marcion,  on  the 
other  hand,  exceeded  the  liberality  of  all  other  Christians 
in  admitting  Catechumens,  or  mere  learners,  to  all  his 
teachings  and  services.^ 

Men  could  hardly  have  been  more  unlike,  as  regards 
mental  predispositions,  than  the  followers  of  INIarcion 
and  Valentinus.     On  the  latter,  compare  note  52. 

Basilides  and  his  followers,  who,  to  simplify  the  argu- 
ment, have  not  previously  been  mentioned,  were  another 
Alexandrine  sect,  resulting  from  this  war,  equally  extrav- 
agant as  the  Valentinians,  and  who  discriminated  between 
the  Jewish  God  and  the  Supreme  Being.  A  full  account 
of  the  Gnostics  would  occupy  more  space  than  can  here 
be  given  it.  Tlie  reader  can  consult  Norton,  "Gemiineness 
of  the  Gospels,"  Vols.  2,  3 ;  in  the  abridged  edition,  pp. 
160-413.  The  abridgment  has  an  index,  which  the  com- 
plete  edition  as  yet  needs.  Some  views  of  the  Valentinian, 
or  Alexandrine,  Gnostics  will  be  found  in  Underivorkl 
Mission,  pp.  19-27,  128-131;  3d  edit.  pp.  18-26,  122- 
125. 

2.    HEATHEN  NAMES  AFFIXED  TO  JEWISH  DOCUMENTS. 

We  now  come  to  a  second  result  of  the  revolt.  In 
order  to  understand  it  we  must  remember  that  Chris- 
tians, in  controversy  with  heathens,  could  not  a])]-)eal  to 
their  own  documents  as  evidence;  that  this  debarred  tliem 

12  The  non-liereti£cal  Christians  of  the  second  century  admitted  new 
converts  only  to  a  portion  of  their  services.  When  they  came  to  ^Yhat 
were  considered  its  holier  prayers  and  services,  new  converts  were  dis- 
missed. ]\Iarcion,  on  the  contrary  (Jerome,  Comment,  in  Galat.  6,  (i ; 
0pp.  7,  col.  523;  Tertull.  Dc  Frocscript.  Hceret.  41),  was  glad  to  have 
them  listen  to  every  teaching  and  share  in  every  prayer.  By  the  remark 
in  the  text  must  not  be  understood  that  the  Valentinians  were  disci])li- 
narians. 


§1.]        EFFECTS    OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      337 

from  using  the  Gospels,  or  any  of  what  we  call  the  ISTew 
Testament  writings,  and  prompted  a  free  use  of  any  au- 
thoi'ity  recognized  by  heathens. 

Monotheistic  and  moral  verses  were  in  circulation  un- 
der the  name  of  Sibylla,  or  without  professed  authorship. 
If  these  were  to  be  used,  it  was  desirable,  during  the  storm 
of  anti-Jewish  feeling,  to  rescue  them  from  suspicion  of 
being  Jewish.  Even  the  established  reputation  of  the 
verses  from  Erythraj  did  not  save  them  from  the  same 
need. 

A  consequence  of  the  foregoing  state  of  things  was  that 
the  verses  from  Erythrae,  in  spite  of  internal  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  were  attributed  to  a  daughter  of  Bero- 
sus,^^  the  writer  of  Chaldaean  history,  while  to  various 
fragments  were  prefixed  the  names  of  different  heathen 
Greeks.  A  few  of  these  will  enable  the  reader  to  judge 
how  irreconcilable  they  were  with  a  heathen  authorshij). 
"  Hear  Sophocles  speaking  as  follows :  — 

"  One  truly,  but  One  is  God, 
Who  made  heaven  and  the  Ijroad  earth, 
The  sea's  sparkling  billow  and  the  violence  of  winds. 
But  many  [of  us]  mortals,  deceived  in  heart. 
Established  as  refuge  for  misfortunes, 
Stone  and  wooden  images  of  gods  ; 
Or  their  medals  in  gold  and  ivory. 
Making  sacrifices  and  festal  gatherings  for  these 
We  deem  it  practical  recognition  [of  the  divine  nature]."  " 

Another  piece,  of  which  the  first  seven  lines  may,  or 
may  not,  be  a  Christian  fabrication,  is  the  following:  — 

"  It  is  necessary  to  remind  you  what  things  Orpheus  — 
the  earliest  teacher,  as  one  may  say,  of  your  polytheism 
—  eventually  proclaims  concerning  one  sole  God,  to  his 
son  Musffius  and  his  other  relatives.     He  said  thus  :  — 

"  /  speak  to  lavful  listeners.     ShiU  your  door,s,  ye  profane 
All  together.     Listen,  Musmus,  descendant  of  the 

13  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  37  ;  Just.  Mart.  Opjy.  1,  p.  104,  edit.  Otto. 

"  Cohortatio  ad  Grceoos,  18;  Just.  Mart.  0pp.  1,  pp.  .^)G-.'.8,  edit. 
Otto.  The  passage  is  found  also  in  the  treatise  De  Monarchia,  2 ;  Jus- 
tin, 0pp.  p.  114;  and  in  Clem.  Alex.  Profrcpt.  §  74,  p.  63,  edit.  Potter, 
and  its  first  two  lines  in  Athenagoras,  Legal.  5. 

15  V 


338  JUDAISM   AT   liOME.  [CH.  XI. 

Brilliant  moon.     For  I  speak  truth,  led  \iny  ?]  former 
Views  should  rob  you  of  longed-for  eternity. 
Looking  to  the  divine  teaching,  Xoyoi/,  give  it  heed. 
Guiding  [yowr]  heart's  intelligent  recess.     Mount  in  earnest 
The  path  ^cithout  turn.     Look  to  the  Only  King  of  the  world. 

One  is  self-liorn.     By  One  are  created  all  things  which  have  origin. 
He  exists  in  them,  nor  does  any  mortal  vision 
Perceive  him  ;  but  he  sees  all. 
He,  besides  good,  sends  evil  to  mortals, 
Both  bloody  Avar  and  lamentable  sufferings. 
Nor  is  there  another  [ruler]  save  the  Great  King. 
I  do  not  see  him,  because  a  cloud  is  fixed  about  him ; 
Because  [also]  all  mortals  have  [but]  mortal  pupils  in  their  eyes, 
Which  are  weak  to  discern  the  all-pervading  Guardian. 
He  fixes  himself  in  the  brazen  heaven 
On  a  golden  throne.     His  feet  touch  the  earth.^^ 
He  has  stretched  his  right  hand  to  the  ocean's  extremity 
Everywhere;  for  the  mountain  ridges  tremble, 
And  the  rivers,  and  the  depth  of  the  joyous  foaming  sea."*" 

The  treatise  De  IMonarcliia  commences  its  quotations 
with  the  following :  "  JEschylus  first,  when  arranging  his 
compositions,  uttered  his  voice  concerning  the  sole  God. 
He  spoke  thus  :  — 

"  Distinguish  God  from  mortals,  and  do  not  think 
That  the  fleshly  is  like  unto  him. 
You  know  him  not.     Sometimes  he  appears  as  fire, 
Unapproachable  in  its  rush,  sometimes  as  water,  sometimes  as  dark- 
ness. 
He  is  present  in  [the  scourge  by]  wild  beasts, 
In  the  wind,  cloud  and  lightning,  thunder  [and]  rain. 
The  sea  is  his  servant,  and  the  rocks. 


1^  An  imitation  of  Isaiah  66,  1  :  "  Heaven  is  my  throne,"  etc 
^^  Cohort,  ad  Graecos,  15.  The  De  Monarchia,  2,  omits  the  first 
two  linos  and  ('lem.  Alex  PrntrrpL  §  74,  the  last  eleven.  To  ]iarvy  dis- 
trust of  its  professed  autliorsliip  the  passage  must  before  the  fourth  cen- 
tury have  been  intei])olated  into  a  work  of  Aristobulus,  a  Jew  (B.  c.  180  ?) 
as  if  quoted  by  liiiii  from  Orpheus.     See  Eusebius,  Pra'parat.  13,  12, 

In  the  sixth  line  from  the  end  of  the  above,  I  have  adopted  the  reading 
rbv  Sid.  The  other  reading,  adopted  by  Otto,  ALa  rdv,  which  makes  Ju- 
piter the  person  indicated,  mny  either  have  originated  with  some  Stoic, 
or  with  some  Christian,  willing  to  sacrifice  consistency  in  order  to  create 
confiilence  in  the  heathen  origin  of  liis  quotation.     Compare  note  40. 


§1.]        EFFECTS   OF  JEWISH   EEVOLT   UNDER  HADRIAN.     339 

And  every  fountain,  and  the  gatherings  of  water. 

The  mountains  tremble,  and  tlie  earth  ;  both  the  monstrous 

Depths  of  the  sea  and  the  great  mountain  heights, 

When  the  Master's  eye  hjoks  severe. 

For  the  decision  of  the  Highest  God  determines  all  things."  " 

Further  on,  the  same  work  alleges  that  "  PMlemon  .  .  . 
writes  thus :  — 

"  Tell  me  what  we  are  to  think  of  God, 
Who  sees  all  things  and  is  himself  invisible."  " 

Clement  of  Alexandria  attributes  the  same  passage  to 
Euripides. 

We  will  add  one  which  teaches  retribution  and  is  from 
the  treatise  De  Monarchia  :  "  Philemon  again  says :  — 

"  Do  you  think,  O  Nicostratus,  that  the  dead, 
After  luxuriating  during  life, 

Are  concealed  by  the  earth,  so  that  from  [now]  to  eternity 
They  escape  the  divine  power  by  concealment '( 

There  is  an  eye  of  retribution  which  sees  all  things. 
For,  if  the  just  and  godless  have  one  fate, 
Haste  to  rob,  steal,  despoil,  and  embroil. 

Be  not  deceived.    There  is  judgment  even  in  the  Underworld, 
Which  God  the  Master  of  all  will  administer, 
Whose  fearful  name  I  may  not  utter."  '* 

Clement  of  Alexandria  attributes  the  forejroinff  with 
additional  matter  to  Diphilus. 

The  next  on  our  list  pertains  to  sacrifices.  The  trea- 
tise De  Monarchia  attributes  it  to  Philemon,  but  Clement 
of  Alexandria  attributes  it,  or  rather  a  portion  of  it,  to 
Menander.  It  is  here  quoted  from  the  former.  "  Phi- 
lemon, again,  testifies  to  me  that  God  is  not  propitiated  by 
the  libation  and  sacrifice  of  evil-doers,  but  apportions,  in 
rectitude,  punishments  to  each.     [He  says] :  — 

"  If  any  one,  Pamphilus,  by  offering  as  sacrifice 
A  multitude  of  bulls  or  kids  ;  or  fabrications  made 

1^  De  Monarchia,  2;  Justin,  Opjh  1,  pp.  112-114.  Also  in  Clem. 
Alex.  Strom.  5,  §  132,  pp.  727,  728. 

"  De  Monarchia,  2;  Justin,  0pp.  1,  pp.  114-116.  Also  in  Clem. 
Alex.  Prof.rcpL  §  68  (inisnunibered  64  in  Klotz),  p.  59. 

i«  De  Monarchia,  3;  Justin,  C/);j.  1,  pp.  118-120.  Also  in  Clem. 
Alex.  Slrom.  5,  §  122,  p.  721. 


340  JUDAISM  AT   EOME.  [CH.  XI. 

By  others,^ — [as]  golden  or  purple  cloaks, 
Or  carved  work  of  ivory,  or  emerald,  — 
Thinks  to  make  God  well  disposed, 
.   He  deceives  himself  and  has  a  frivolous  mind. 

Man  should  make  himself  profitable, 
Neither  corrupting  virgins  nor  married  women. 
Not  stealing  and  killing  for  gain, 
[Nor]  looking  with  desire  on  another's. 
Whether  [on]  his  wife  or  costly  house, 
Or  property,  his  man-servant,  or  simply  his  maid-servant, 
[His]  horses,  oxen,  or  aggregate  flocks.^'     What  then '? 
You  shall  not,  Pamphilus,  desire  one  thread  from  his  needle, 
For  God,  who  is  near,  sees  thee. 
Who  is  pleased  with  just,  not  with  unjust,  works. 
He  permits  prosjierity  to  the  industrious  [man]. 
Who  tills  the  earth  night  and  day. 

Sacrifice  to  God,  [by]  observing  constant  justice. 
Being  resplendent  not  in  clothes  but  in  heart. 
Do  not  fly  at  the  sound  of  thunder, 
O  Master,  if  unconscious  of  wrong. 
For  God,  who  is  near,  sees  thee."^ 

"  Pythagoras,"  according  to  tlie  De  IVTonarchia,  "  partici- 
pates with  him  [Or})lieus]  in  what  he  [the  former]  writes 
[concerning  monotheism] :  — 

"  If  any  [being]  save  One  shall  say,  *  T  am  God,'  he  ought, 
Equally  with  this  [One],  after  establishing  a  world,  to  say,  '  This  is 

mine.' 
And  not  only,  after  establishing  it,  to  say  '  Mine,'  but  to  dwell 
In  what  he  has  made.  He,  however,  has  been  made  by  this  [One.]"  ^ 

Euripides  is  represented  by  the  De  Monarchia  as  teach- 
ing tliat  the  prosperously  wicked  should  improve  the  time 
Granted  them  before  retribution.^*    Clement  of  Alexandria 


^°  The  translation  follows  the  Codex  Argentoratensis,  omitting  an  oath 
by  Jupiter,  which,  if  not  added  by  some  Stoic,  was  inconsistently  inserted 
by  some  Christian  as  confirming  the  heathen  authorship  of  the  piece. 
Compare  note  16. 

-1  Compare  Exoihis  20,  17;  and  Deuteronomy  5,  21. 

"  De  Monarchia,  4;  Justin,  0pp.  1,  pp.  122-124.  See  also  Clem. 
Alex.  S/rmn.  5,  §§  120,  121,  pp.  720,  721. 

-'  De  Monarchia,  2 ;  Justin.  0pp.  1,  pp.  116  -118,  C. 

-■^  De  Monarchia,  3,  pp.  120-122,  B.  Also  in  Clem.  Alex.  Strom. 
5,  §  122,  pp.  721,  722. 


§  1.]         EFFECTS   OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      341 

attributes  the  same  teaching,  with  some   alteration    of 
phraseology,  to  "  Diphilus  .  .  .  the  comic  [poet]." 

The  De  Monarchia  makes  two  consecutive  quotations, 
alleging  them  to  be  from  Menander.  One  of  these  it 
claims  to  take  from  a  work  of  his  called  the  "  Charioteer." 
The  quotation  —  but  four  lines  long^^  —  complains  of  any- 
such  god  as  goes  about,  instead  of  remaining  at  home. 
It  might,  save  for  the  company  in  which  we  find  it,  be 
deemed  a  heathen  production. 

The  second  citation  is  seven  lines  long,  and  professedly 
from  a  work  called  "The  Priestess," 'le'pcta,  or,  as  it  might 
otherwise  be  translated,  "The  Sacrifice."  One  of  its  alle- 
gations is,  that 

"  If  a  man  can  sway 
Any  god,  by  cymbals,  to  what  he  wishes, 
He  who  does  this  is  greater  than  the  god."  ^ 

An  open  attack  of  this  kind  upon  heathen  worship  is 
less  probably  by  a  heathen  than  by  a  Jewish  author. 

Somewhat  further  on,  another  quotation  is  professedly 
made  from  a  work  called  Diphilus,  "  Friend  of  God,"  which 
the  writer  attributes  to  Menander.  It  inculcates  tlie  hon- 
oring of  one  God.2"  Clement  of  Alexandria  attributes  the 
same  to  the  comic  poet,  Diphilus. 

The  Cohortatio  ad  Gra:>cos  attributes  to  a  heathen  oracle 
a  hymn  concerning  the  Supreme  Being,  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  was  spoken  of  as 

"  Having  formed  the  first  mortal  and  called  him  Adam."  "* 

Theopliilus  attributes  to  "  Philemon,  tlie  comic  [poet]," 
the  following :  — 

"  Those  who  recognize  God  have 
Good  hopes  of  salvation."  ^ 

25  De  Monarchia,  5  ;  Clem.  Alex.  Prutrept.  §  75.  Justin  [Apol. 
1,  ii.)  attributes  to  Menauder  a  behef  in  a  conHagration. 

28  De  Monarchia,  5  ;  Justin.  Oj)p.  1,  p.  126,  B.  C.  ;  and  in  Clem. 
Alex.  Protrrpt.  §  75,  0pp.  pp.  64,  65. 

-"  De  Monarchia,  5  ;  Justin.  0pp.  1,  p.  132.     Also  in  Clem.  Alex. 
Strom.  5,  §  1.34,  p.  728. 
"^  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  38  ;  Just.  Mart.  0pp.  6,  p.  108,  D. 

29  Theophilus,  Ad  Autol.  3,  T;  Justin.  Op}).  ed.  Maran,  p.  385,  A. 


342  JUDAISM   AT   KOME.  [CII.  XI. 

Coni]3are  in  the  Appendix,  Note  A,  §  viii.,  two  Jewish 
documents  attributed  to  Phocylides. 

If  the  question  he  asked,  why  these  productions  should 
he  regarded  as  Jewish  rather  than  Christian,  the  answer 
is,  firstly,  that,  with  the  exception  pointed  out  in  the  sec- 
ond quotation,  they  bear  no  marks  of  Christian  peculiari- 
ties. This  would  scarcely  have  been  the  case  had  they 
been  fabricated  by  Christians.  Again,  the  fact  that  the 
Erythr.x^an  verses,  unquestionably  Jewish,  are  attributed 
at  this  date  to  a  daughter  of  Berosus,  favors  the  sup- 
position that  other  Jewish  documents  would  be  treated 
in  a  similar  manner.  Further,  we  find  God  mentioned 
as  havino-  a  name  which  was  not  to  be  uttered.  This 
contradicts  the  view  of  Christians,  that  he  had  no 
name.^*^  We  find  also  the  Underworld  treated  apparently 
as  a  place  botli  of  rewards  and  punishments.  This  is 
antagonistic  to  the  view  of  Christians,  who  believed  them- 
selves exempt  from  it.^^ 

3.  The  document  called  Acts  of  Pilate  was  an  attempt 
to  substitute  non-Christian  in  place  of  Christian  testi- 
mony for  facts  mentioned  in  the  Gos])els.  Concerning 
events  in  Judaea,  Jews  were,  naturally  enough,  in  the 
original  document,  cited  as  witnesses.  Some  manu- 
scripts, as  elsewhere  mentioned,^  substitute  Gentile  mon- 
otheists  instead  of  Jews.  Absence  of  historical  testimony 
forbids  positive  decision  as  to  the  cause  or  date  of  this 
change.  The  most  probable  explanation  of  it  is  tlie  an- 
tagonism to  Jews  which  resulted  from  this  rebellion. 

4.  We  now  come  to  a  fourth  result  of  the  war,  an  em- 
bitterment  on  the  part  of  semi-Jewish  Christians  towards 
the  Jews.  In  considering  this,  it  is  difficult  to  discrimi- 
nate fully  between  tlie  natural  results  of  controversy  and 
tlie  additional  embitterment  occasioned  by  the  war.  The 
semi-Jewish  Christians  were  those,  of  Gentile  origin,  most 

*•  See,  in  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Underworld,  note  5  on  page  140. 
"1  See  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Underworld,  §§  xxii.,  xxni. 
^  See  Appendix,  Note  B,  foot-note  4. 


§  I.]      EFFECTS   OF  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.        343 

nearly  allied  in  faith  to  the  Jews,  in  that  they  believed  a 
flesldy  resurrection,  and,  with  perhaps  some  exceptions,  a 
millennium  and  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem.  They  rejected 
any  belief  in  the  soul's  ascent  at  death  to  heaven.^^ 
Their  proximity,  on  many  points,  to  the  Jews,  would  ac- 
count for  their  laying  extra  stress  on  points  of  difference. 
Yet  this  stress  was  obviously  intensified  by  prevalent  anti- 
Jewish  feeling. 

In  order  to  appreciate  their  arguments  against  the 
Jews,  a  modern  reader,  in  England,  at  least,  and  America, 
needs  perhaps  to  be  told  that,  in  the  second  century,  no 
Christians  regarded  Sunday  as  the  Sabbath,  and  few,  if 
any,  kept  it  as  a  day  of  rest.  The  Sabbath  was  deemed 
by  them  a  temporary  institution  for  the  Jews.  They, 
however,  not  only  deemed  themselves  exempt  from  its 
observance,  but  some  of  them  treated  the  Jews  as  foolish 
for  keeping  it.^* 

In  portions  of  the  East,  where  the  war  raged  less  or  did 
not  extend,  there  seems  to  have  been  less  depreciation  of, 
and  discourtesy  towards,  Jewish  institutions.  There  Chris- 
tians in  their  prayers  stood  erect  on  Saturday  equally  as 
on  Sunday,  —  a  mark  of  respect  for  the  day  wherewith 
some  Western  Christians  found  fault.^ 

^  Compare  Christ's  Mission  to  tlie  Undcrivorld,  pp.  8,  121,  162-  167  ; 
3d  edit.  pp.  7,  8,  116,  156-161. 

^  "  The  law  given  in  Horeb  is  now  antiquated,  and  concerned  only  you 
[Jews]."  — Just.  Mart.  Dialogue,  11  ;  0pp.  2,  p.  40  B.  "  Observe  that 
the  material  universe,  aroix^la,  is  neither  idle  nor  observes  any  Sabbath. 
Kemain  as  you  were  born.  For  if  before  Abraham  there  was  no  need  of 
circumcision,  nor  before  Moses  of  Sabbath-keeping  and  feasts  and  offer- 
ings, neither  is  there  now."  —  Just.  Mart.  Dialogue,  23  ;  0pp.  2,  p.  78  B. 
"It  has  been  shown  that  these  things  were  commanded  you  because  of 
your  people's  hardness  of  heart."  —  Just.  Mart.  Dialogue,  43  ;  0pp.  2, 
p.  136  D. 

''^^  Rheinvrald,  in  his  Arclumlogy,  §  62,  treats  the  above-mentioned 
manifestation  of  honor  towards  the  Saturday  as  a  peculiarity  of  the  whole 
Oriental  Church.  He  says  :  "The  custom  of  celebrating  the  old  JewLsh 
sabbath  equally  as  Sunday,  of  abstaining,  on  it,  from  fasting,  and  of 
standing  while  praying,  probably  passed  from  the  community  of  Jewi.sh 
Christians  into  the  Oriental  Church.     In  the  West,  on  the  other  hand, 


344  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  XL 

§  II.    Indirect  Effects. 

1.    EXTRAVAGANT  USE  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

Among  indirect  results  of  the  war  was  an  increased 
extravagance  on  the  part  of  Christians  in  using  the  Old 
Testament.  A  motive  for  its  undue  use  had  previously 
existed.  Christians  were  tempted  to  fabricate  from  it 
evidences  concerning  Jesus,  because  the  evidence  in  the 
Gospels  rested  on  Christian  testimony,  and  was  therefore 
inadmissible  in  controversy  against  heathens  or  Jews. 
To  this  existing  tendency  the  rise  of  the  Gnostics  gave  a 
strong  additional  impulse.  Their  allegation,  that  Christ 
came  not  from  the  God  of  the  Jews,  made  the  Catholic 
or  main  body  of  Christians  more  bent  on  finding  him 
constantly  pointed  out  in  the  Old  Testament.     The  ex- 

especially  in  the  anti-Jewish  Roman  Church,  the  Sabbath  was  distin- 
guished as  a  fast.  Already  at  an  early  day  this  matter  was  a  subject  of 
strife  in  the  church,  which  became  more  violent  after  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century.  When,  at  last,  fasting  on  the  Sabbath  was  legalized  [by 
a  decree]  from  Rome,  this  ditiVrence  furnished  in  later  centuries  one  of 
the  grounds  of  church  separation  between  East  and  West." 

Rheinwald,  in  coming  to  his  conclusions,  relies  on  certain  documents 
(the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Canons)  as  representing  customs  of  the 
Oriental  Christians.  This  may  be,  in  the  main,  correct.  But  the  infer- 
ence would  be  unsafe,  that,  in  Judaea,  or  in  the  theatre  of  war  anywhere, 
this  mark  of  respect  had  been  commonly  shown,  after  tlie  war,  to  the 
Jewish  Sabbath  by  Gentile  Christians.  Access  to  Jerusalem  was  by 
Hadrian's  edict  prohibited  to  Jews.  Marks  of  respect  towards  Judaism 
were  not  likely  to  be  manifested,  or  tolerated,  within  it.  Christians 
throughout  Judiea  had  suffered  severely  at  the  hands  of  Bar-Cochba,  the 
Jewish  leader.  They  were  not  likely,  in  return  for  it,  to  manifest  regard 
towards  Jewish  customs.  Outside  of  JudaBa,  the  undefined  limits  of  the 
war  foil  elfort  to  discriminate  accurately  between  localities  in  which  respect 
for  Judaism  remained,  or  was  but  temporarily  impaired,  and  those  in  which 
it  was  supplanted  by  hatred. 

Tertullian,  before  becoming  a  Montanist,  found  fault  with  such  as  ob- 
served the  Sabbath  after  the  Eastern  fashion.  When  he  had  himself 
become  a  Montanist  he  imitated  them.  Citations  from  him  and  other 
authors  may  be  found  in  notes  which  Rheinwald  has  appended  to  his  §  62. 


§11.]       EFFECTS   OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      345 

travagance  of  the  earlier  Fathers  in  this  direction  is  well 
known.  I  append,  however,  a  passage  concerning  Justin 
Marty r,^^ — who  lived  through  the  war  and  in  the  time  of 

^  Justin  Martyr  "  considers  the  tree  of  life  planted  in  Paradise  a 
symbol  of  Christ's  cross,  through  which  he  achieved  his  triumphs  ;  and 
he  goes  on  to  descant  at  great  length  on  the  sj'mbolic  properties  of  wood. 
Moses,  he  tells  us,  was  sent  with  a  rod  to  deliver  his  people  ;  with  a  rod 
he  divided  the  sea,  and  brought  water  out  of  the  rock.  By  a  piece  of  wood 
the  waters  of  Marah  were  made  sweet.  With  a  rod,  or  staff,  Jacob  passed 
over  the  Jordan.  Aaron  obtained  his  priesthood  by  the  budding  and 
blossoming  of  his  rod;  Isaiah  predicted  that  there  should  come  forth  a 
rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse  ;  and  David  compares  the  just  to  a  tree 
planted  by  the  waters.  From  a  tree,  God  was  seen  by  Abraham;  as  it  is 
written,  'at  the  oak  of  Mamre.'  By  a  rod  and  staff,  David,  says  he,  re- 
ceived consolation  of  God.  The  people,  having  crossed  the  Jordan,  found 
seventy  willows  ;  and,  by  casting  wood  into  it,  Elisha  made  iron  to  swim. 
In  a  similar  strain  he  proceeds  ;  which  furnishes  no  unapt  occasion  for  the 
sarcastic  Middleton  to  say,  that  he  '  applies  all  the  sticks  and  pieces  of 
wood  in  the  Old  Testament  to  the  cross  of  Christ.'  .  .  .  God,  he  ob- 
serves to  Trypho,  teaching  us  the  mystery  of  the  cross,  says,  in  the  bless- 
ing with  which  he  blesses  Joseph,  'The  horns  of  a  unicorn  are  his,  and 
with  them  shall  he  push  the  nations  to  the  end  of  the  earth.'  Now,  the 
horns  of  the  unicorn,  he  continues,  exhibit,  as  it  can  be  demonstrated, 
no  other  figure  than  that  of  a  cross  ;  and  this  he  attempts  to  show  by  a 
very  minute  analysis.  Then  as  to  the  assertion,  '  With  them  shall  he 
push  the  nations  to  the  extremities  of  the  earth '  ;  this  is  no  more  than 
what  is  now  taking  place  among  all  people  ;  for,  struck  by  the  horn,  that 
is,  penetrated  by  the  mystery  of  the  cross,  they,  of  all  nations,  are  turned 
from  idols  and  demons  to  the  worship  of  God. 

"  Again  :  when  the  people  warred  with  Amalek,  and  Jesus  (Joshua), 
the  son  of  Nun,  led  the  battle,  Moses,  he  says,  prayed  with  his  arms 
extended  in  the  form  of  a  cross  ;  and  if  they  were  at  any  time  lowered, 
so  as  to  destroy  this  figure,  the  tide  turned  against  the  Isi-aelites ;  but,  as 
long  as  this  figure  was  preserved,  they  prevailed.  They  finally  conquered, 
he  gravely  remaiks,  not  because  Moses  prayed,  but  because,  while  the 
name  of  Jesus  was  in  the  van  of  tlie  battle,  the  former,  standing  or  sit- 
ting with  his  arms  extended,  exhibited  the  figure  of  a  cross.  His  sitting 
or  bent  posture,  too,  he  observes,  was  expressive;  and  thus  the  knee  is 
bent,  or  the  body  prostrated,  in  all  effectual  ]ira3^er.  Lastly,  the  rock 
on  which  he  sat  had,  saj-s  he,  'as  I  have  shown,'  a  symbolic  reference  to 
Christ."  — Lamson,  Church  of  the  First  Three  Centuries,  pp.  46-48. 
15* 


346  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CII.  XI. 

the  Gnostics,  —  and  also  a  specimen  of  the  artistic  skill 
wherewith  Oriuen  allesrorized  the  Old  Testament  so  as  to 
connect  it  witli  the  Gospel  history.^' 

A  reader  unfamiliar  with  Greek  may  need  to  know  that  in  that  Language 
Joshua  and  Jesus  are  one  and  the  same  name.  Without  this,  a  portion 
of  Justin's  argument  would  be  unintelligible. 

^^  "In  Exodus  15,  23-27,  it  is  related  that  the  Israelites,  after  cross- 
ing the  Red  Sea,  came  to  the  waters  of  Marah,  which  were  so  bitter  that 
they  could  not  drink  them ;  but  that  the  Lord  showed  Moses  a  tree, 
which  when  he  cast  into  the  water,  it  became  sweet ;  and  that  afterwards 
the  Israelites  arrived  at  Elim,  where  were  twelve  wells  of  water,  and 
threescore  and  ten  palm-trees. 

"  'It  is  very  strange,'  says  Origen,  'that  God  should  show  Moses  a 
tree  to  cast  into  the  water,  to  make  it  sweet.  Could  he  not  make  the 
water  sweet  without  a  tree  ?  .  .  .  But  let  us  see  what  beauty  there  is  in 
the  inner  sense.'  He  accordingly  explains,  that,  allegorically  understood, 
the  bitter  waters  of  Marah  denote  the  Jewish  Law,  which,  in  its  literal 
l)urport,  is  bitter  enough;  so  that  of  its  bitterness  the  true  people  of 
God  cannot  drink.  'What,  then,  is  the  tree  which  God  showed  to  Moses? 
Solomon  teaches  us,  when  he  says  of  Wisdom,  that  she  is  a  tree  of  life 
to  all  who  embrace  her.  If,  therefore,  the  tree  of  wisdom,  Christ,  be  cast 
into  the  Law,'  and  show  us  how  it  ought  to  be  understood  (I  compress 
several  clauses  into  these  woids),  'then  the  water  of  Mai'ah  becomes 
sweet,  and  the  bitterness  of  the  Law  is  changed  into  the  sweetness  of 
spiritual  intelligence  ;  and  then  the  people  of  God  can  drink  of  it.' 
Origen  afterwards  remarks  on  the  subsequent  arrival  of  the  Israelites  at 
Elim  with  its  twelve  springs  and  seventy  palm-trees.  '  Do  you  think,' 
he  asks,  '  that  any  reason  can  be  given  why  they  were  not  first  led  to 
Elim  ?  ...  If  we  follow  the  history  alone,  it  does  not  much  edify  us  to 
know  where  they  first  went,  and  where  they  next  went.  But,  if  we 
search  out  the  mystery  hidden  in  these  things,  we  find  the  order  of  faith. 
The  people  is  first  led  to  the  letter  of  the  Law,  from  which,  while  this 
retains  its  bitterness,  it  cannot  depart.  But  when  the  Law  is  made 
sweet  by  the  tree  of  life,  and  begins  to  be  spiritually  understood,  then 
the  people  jiasses  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  and  comes  to  the 
twelve  fountains  of  the  Apostles.  In  the  same  place,  also,  are  found 
seventy  palm-trees.  For  not  only  the  twelve  Apostles  preached  faith 
in  Christ,  but  it  is  related  that  seventy  others  were  sent  to  preach  the 
word  of  God,  through  whom  the  world  miglit  a('knowledge  the  palms  of 
the  victory  of  Christ.'  Ilomil.  in  E.rod.  7,  §§  1,  3;  Ojrp.  2,  ini,  152."  — 
Norton,  Genuineness,  2,  p^).  256,  257,  edit.  1844;  abridged  edition,  pp. 
305,  306. 


§  II.]      EFFECTS    OF   JEWISH   KEVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.       347 

The  tendency  of  the  Christians  in  this  direction  was 
counteracted  in  the  latter  half  of  the  third  century  by 
heathen  incredulity  and  ridicule,  the  result  of  Christian 
extravaoauce  and  of  causes  narrated  below.^^     Arnobius 


^  Already,  in  the  earlier  part  of  tlie  second  century,  some  Christian 
had  noted  on  the  margin,  or  interpolated  into  the  text,  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament two  or  three  lines  concerning  the  supposed  Underworld  Mission 
of  Jesus.  The  various  forms  in  which  this  interpolation  appears  are 
mentioned  in  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Underworld,  p.  39;  3d  edit.  pp.  37, 
38.  On  page  75  (3d  edit.  pp.  71,  72)  of  the  same  work  will  be  found  a 
quotation  by  TertuUian  from  Psalm  96,  10,  or  97,  l,  which,  unless  hij 
memory  failed  him,  would  imply  an  interpolation,  intentional  or  unin- 
tentional, of  two  or  three  words.  The  use  made  by  Christians  of  one,  or 
both,  of  these  passages  had,  it  would  seem,  created  a  distrust  of  their 
quotations.  The  author  of  the  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  when  pro- 
posing to  argue  from  the  Old  Testament,  tells  the  heathens,  "Tiie  pres- 
ervation until  now  among  the  Jews  of  books  which  so  uphold  our  [the 
Christian]  monotheism,  was  a  work  of  divine  providence  in  our  behalf; 
for,  lest  by  bringing  them  from  our  [place  of]  assembly,  we  should  afford 
to  those  who  wish  to  calumniate  us  a  pretence  for  [charging]  fraud,  we 
decide  to  bring  them  from  the  synagogue  of  the  Jews."  —  Ch.  13,  p.  48, 
edit.  Otto. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  third  century  a  small  work,  called  the  Ascen- 
sion of  Isaiah,  was  forged.  Its  teachings  cannot  have  been  acceptable 
to  the  Gnostics  nor  to  the  semi-Jewish  party  among  Catholics,  nor  to  any 
save  an  exceptional  few  among  the  Liberalist  Catholics.  Yet,  however 
small  its  circulation,  it  could  not  but  add  somewhat  to  the  prevailing 
distrust  of  professedly  Jewish  records  when  used  by  Christians. 

In  the  second  half  of  the  third  century  lived  Porphyry,  an  opponent 
of  Christianity,  who  had  read  much,  who  was  widely  known,  and  who 
enjoyed  a  reputation  at  least  for  ability.  He  wrote  a  work  in  fifteen 
books  against  the  Christians.  Jerome,  in  his  preface  to  Daniel  (Vol.  5, 
col.  617,  618),  says  that  "  Porphyry  wrote  his  twelfth  book  against  the 
Proi>het  Daniel,  maintaining  that  it  was  not  composed  by  him  whose 
name  it  bears,  but  by  some  one  in  Judaea  during  the  time  of  Antiochus, 
surnamed  Epiphanes,  and  that  Daniel  narrated  not  so  much  future  events 
as  past  ones."  To  a  chronologist  the  assigned  date  would  imply  that  the 
book  was  anterior  to  Cliristianity.  But  tlie  mass  of  tlie  comnuinity  and 
a  large  .share  even  of  intelligent  persons,  at  that  date,  were  quite  ignorant 
of  chronology.  Cluistianity  was  more  than  two  centuries  old,  and  the 
vagueness  of  their  knowled<re  concerning  things  which  belonged  even  a 


348  JUDAISM  AT   ROME.  [CH.  XI. 

uses  no  argument  from  the  Old  Testament.^^  Lactantius, 
though  a  semi-Jewish  Christian,  forbears  such  argument 
in  the  earlier  part  of  his  work,  and  maintains  that  it  is 
not  advisable  with  heathens.*'^ 

century  before  themselves,  would  have  made  them  take  small  accouut 
of  inconsistencies  in  date,  especially  when  this  absence  of  discrimination 
favored  their  own  prejudices.  The  work  of  Porphyry  probably  assisted 
in  bringing  distrust  of  Christian  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  to 
that  culmination  which  is  evinced  by  a  citation  from  Lactantius  in  our 
next  note  but  one. 

39  The  article  on  Arnobius  in  Smith's  Dictionary  says,  "The  Old 
Testament  seems  to  have  been  altogether  unknown  to  him."  Some 
■writers  have,  on  this  account  perhaps,  deemed  him  only  a  Catechumen 
—  not  yet  admitted  to  full  communion  with  Christians  —  when  he  wrote. 
The  latter  error  is  partly  due  to  an  interpolation  of  Jerome's  Clironicon, 
The  interpolator,  it  may  be  remarked,  placed  the  work  of  Arnobius 
twenty  or  thirty  years  too  late,  —  a  mistake  not  likely  to  have  been  made 
by  Jerome. 

*'^  Lactantius  mentions  in  the  earlier  poition  of  his  work  that  the 
Prophetical  writings  were  discredited  as  uninspired,  and  in  a  later  pas- 
sage asserts  that  they  were  deemed  recent  forgeries.  In  his  Institutes, 
1,4,  he  says,  "Persons  devoid  of  the  truth  do  not  think  that  these 
[Prophetical  writings]  can  be  trusted ;  for  they  say  they  were  not  divine 
but  human  utterances."  And  in  ch.  5,  he  continues:  "  Rut  let  us  omit 
the  testimonies  of  the  prophets,  lest  the  proof  should  seem  less  appropri- 
ate from  these  [writers]  to  whom  no  credence  whatever  is  attached."  In 
the  same  work  (4,  5),  he  remarks:  "Before  I  begin  concerning  God  and 
his  works,  I  must  say  a  few  things  concerning  the  prophets  whose  tes- 
timony it  is  now  necessary  to  use."  Then,  after  an  argument  for  their 
antiquity,  he  continues,  in  the  same  chapter:  "The  prophets,  therefore, 
are  found  to  be  more  ancient  than  even  the  Greek  writers.  All  which 
things  I  adduce  in  order  that  they  may  perceive  their  error  wlio  strive  to 
convict  the  Scripture  as  of  late  origin  and  recently  forged."  Further  on, 
in  the  same  woik  (5,  l),  he  finds  fault  with  Cyprian  for  having  argued 
against  the  heathen  Demetrianus  from  the  Old  Testament :  "  For  he  was 
not  to  be  refuted  by  the  testimonies  of  Scripture,  which  he  regarded 
as  idle,  [or]  forged,  [or]  spurious,  but  by  arguments  and  reasoning." 
Lactantius,  in  the  foregoing,  uses  the  term  "Scripture"  in  its  then  usual 
sense  as  designating  only  the  Old  Testament.  Cyprian,  in  the  work 
alluded  to,  had  made  but  one  citation  (liom.  12,  10)  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  he  probably  thought,  in  making  it,  that  he  was  quoting  from 


§  n.]      EFFECTS    OF   JEWISH   KEVOLT    UNDER   HADRIAN.      349 

2.   ANTITHESES   OF   IRENiEUS. 

Another  indirect  result  of  the  war  was  closely  allied 
with  the  former  one.  It  is  noticeable  for  its  singularity 
rather  than  for  its  importance,  since  but  one  writer  has 
given  it  prominence.  Irengeus  assumes  that  events  re- 
corded in  the  Old  Testament  are,  to  a  great  extent,  anti- 
thetically repeated  in  the  Christian  dispensation.  Illus- 
trations of  his  peculiarity  have  been  given  in  another 
work,^^  and  are,  therefore,  omitted  here.  He  thought, 
probably,  that  tliis  repetition  implied  a  direct  connection 
between  tlie  two  systems,  and  thus  refuted  Gnosticism. 
If  the  repetition,  moreover,  were  antithetical,  the  prevalent 
feeling  against  Judaism  could  be  met  by  the  question,  why 
not  take  its  antithesis. 


3.   JESUS   DEIFIED    AS   SUBORDINATE  GOD   OF    THE   OLD 
TESTAMENT.  41^ 

Yet  another  indirect  result  of  the  war  has  lasted,  though 
in  an  altered  form,  until  the  present  day.  The  Gnostics, 
as  we  have  seen,  maintained  that  the  God  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament could  not  be  the  Supreme  Being.  There  was  much 
in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  whicli,  if  regarded  as  a  literal 
and  reliable  record  of  events,  seemed  irreconcilable  with 
the  attributes  of  such  a  Being.  These  passages,  brought 
into  prominence  by  the  Gnostics,  had  to  be  explained,  not 
to  persons  brought  up  with  a  devout  reverence  for  the 
Old  Testament,  but  to  heathens  who  were  willing  enough 
to  ridicule  it.  Placed  in  this  dilennna,  a  portion  of  the 
Cliristian  controversialists  took  apparently  an  idea  from 
Exodus  23,  20,  21,  2.3,  where  the  Deity  is  represented  as 
saying  of  his  messenger,  who  should  lead  the  Israelites 
into  Canaan,  "  My  name  shall  be  upon  him."  The  mes- 
senger's name  was  Joshua,  the  same  in  the  original  as 
Jesus.      Starting   from  this  and  assumimr,  rather  than 


the  Old.     Compare  Deuteronomy  32,  3.5,  41,  43,  with  Paul's  phraseology. 
Cyprian  should  not,  however,  be  judged  by  the  criticism  of  Lactantius. 

"  See  Underworld  Mission,  pp.  71-74,  94  ;  3d  edit.  pp.  67-71,  89,  90. 

*i*  Compare  Indirect  Testimony,  Appendix,  Note  M. 


350  JUDAISM   AT   liOME.  [ciI.  XI. 

admitting,  that  much  Avhich  was  narrated  could  not  be 
understood  of  the  Supreme  Being,^^  ^\^qj  alleged  an  idea 
nowhere  even  hinted  in  the  New  Testament,  that  the  God 
who  had  appeared  to  the  Patriarchs  and  spoken  with 
Moses,  was  a  subordinate  being  and  was  none  other  than 
Jesus  in  a  pre-existent  state.'*^ 

*2  "Justin,  among  many  other  similar  proofs,  that  there  is  another  god 
beside  the  Supreme  God,  quotes  those  passages  in  which  it  is  said,  tliat 
God  ascended  from  Abraham;  that  God  spoke  to  Moses;  that  the  Lord 
came  down  to  see  the  tower  of  Babel  which  the  sons  of  men  had  built ; 
and  that  God  shut  the  door  of  the  ark  after  Noah  had  entered.  '  Do  not 
suppose,' he  says  (Dialog.  127),  'that  the  unoriginated  God  either  de- 
scended or  ascended ;  for  the  ineffable  Father  and  Lord  of  All  neither 
conies  anywhere,  nor  walks,  nor  sleeps,  nor  arises ;  but  remains  in  his 
own  place,  wherever  that  may  be.'  After  describing  the  greatness,  om- 
niscience, and  omnipresence  of  the  Supreme  God,  he  proceeds :  '  How, 
then,  can  he  speak  to  any  one,  or  be  seen  by  any  one,  or  appear  in  a 
little  portion  of  the  earth,  when  the  people  could  not  behold  on  Sinai 
even  the  glory  of  him  whom  he  sent?  .  .  .  Neither  Abraham,  there- 
fore, nor  Isaac,  nor  Jacob,  nor  any  other  man,  ever  saw  the  Father,  the 
ineffable  Lord  of  All,  even  of  Christ  himself;  but  they  saw  him  who, 
through  the  will  of  the  Father,  was  a  god,  his  Son,  and  likewise  his 
angel,  as  ministering  to  his  purposes.'"  —  Norton,  Genuineness,  2, 
pp.   248,  249;   abridged  edit.  300,  301. 

TertuUian  says  to  the  Jews:  "For  he  who  spoke  to  Moses  was  him- 
self the  Son  of  God,  [the  same]  who  alwaj'S  appeared ;  for  no  one  ever 
saw  God  the  Father  and  lived.  Therefore  it  is  certain  that  it  was  the 
Son,  himself,  of  God  who  spoke  to  Moses  and  said  to  The  People,  '  Lo, 
I  send  my  messenger  before  thy  face  —  that  is,  [tlie  face]  of  The  People  — 
who  shall  guard  thee  in  the  way  and  introduce  thee  into  the  land  which 
I  have  prepared  for  thee.  Attend  to  him  .  .  .  for  my  name  is  upon 
him.'  "  — Tertull.  Adv.  Judccos,  9,  pp.  218  D,  219  A,  edit.  Rigault. 

«  "In  his  Dialogue  with  Trypho  [c.  56],  Justin  Martyr  says,  '  I  will 
endeavor  to  prove  to  you  from  the  Scriptures,  that  he  who  is  said  to  have 
appeared  to  Abraham,  to  Jacob,  and  to  Moses,  and  is  called  God,  is  an- 
other god  [that  is,  divine  being],  different  from  God  who  created  all 
things,  another,  I  say,  numerically,  not  in  will,  for  I  affirm,  that  he 
never  did  anything  at  any  time,  but  what  it  was  the  will  of  him  who 
created  the  world,  and  above  whom  there  is  no  other  God,  that  he  should 
do  and  say.'  "  —  Norton,  Genuineness,  2,  p.  248;  abridged  etlit.  p.  300. 

"TertuUian  regarded  the  Son,  or  the  Logos,  as  having  been  the  min- 


§  II.]      EFFECTS    OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   IIADRIAN.      351 

Justin  distinguishes  in  more  than  one  form  of  phrase- 
ology between  the  Supreme  Being  and  the  pre-existent 


ister  of  God  in  creation  and  in  all  his  subsequent  works.  To  him  he 
ascribes  whatever  actions  are  ascribed  to  God  in  the  Old  Testament. 
'  He  alwaj's  descended  to  converse  with  men,  from  the  time  of  Adam  to 
that  of  the  patriarchs  and  prophets.'  '  He  who  was  to  assume  a  human 
body  and  soul  was  even  then  acquainted  with  human  affections ;  asking 
Adam,  as  if  ignorant.  Where  art  thou,  Adam  ?  repenting  of  having  made 
man,  as  if  wanting  prescience ;  putting  Abraham  to  trial,  as  if  ignorant 
of  what  was  in  man ;  offended  and  reconciled  with  the  same  individuals ; 
and  so  it  is  with  regard  to  all  which  the  heretics  [the  Gnostics]  seize 
upon  to  object  to  the  Creator,  as  unworthy  of  God,  they  being  ignorant 
that  those  things  were  suitable  to  the  Son,  who  was  about  to  submit  to 
human  affections,  to  thirst,  hunger,  and  tears,  and  even  to  be  born  and 
to  die.  .  .  .  How  can  it  be  that  God,  the  Omnipotent,  the  Invisible, 
whom  no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see,  who  dwells  in  light  inaccessible, 
•walked  in  the  evening  in  paradise,  seeking  Adam,  and  shut  the  door  of 
the  ark  after  Noah  had  entered,  and  cooled  luinself  under  an  oak  with 
Abraham,  and  called  to  Moses  from  a  burning  bush  ?  .  .  .  These  things 
v.ould  not  be  credible  concerning  the  Son  of  God,  if  they  were  not  writ- 
ten ;  perhaps  they  would  not  be  credible  concerning  the  Father,  if  they 
were.'"  —  Norton,  Genuineness,  2,  pp.  249,  250;  abridged  edit.  pp.  301, 
802.     The  citation  is  from  Tertull.  Jdv.  Frax.  16. 

Mr.  Norton,  in  another  part  of  his  work,  states,  without  translating, 
the  substance  of  a  passage  in  Origen  :  "Origen  says,  that  the  distinc- 
tion made  by  the  heretics  in  affirming  that  the  Creator  is  just,  and  the 
Father  of  Christ  good,  may,  in  his  opinion,  when  accurately  understood, 
be  said  of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  The  Son  is  just ;  he  has  received 
authority  to  judge  the  world  righteously.  Men  are  here  prepared  by  the 
various  discipline  which  he  appoints  in  justice  for  the  time  when  he  will 
deliver  up  his  kingdom,  when  God,  being  all  in  all,  will  display  his  good- 
ness toward  those  who  have  been  disciplined  by  his  Son ;  and  perhaps 
all  things,  Origen  adds,  may  be  thus  prepared  for  its  reception.  Christ 
himself  has  said  that  the  Father  alone  is  good.  In  like  manner,  Origen 
thinks  that  a  true  sense  may  be  given  to  the  proposition,  that  there  is 
one  superior  to  the  Creator,  Christ  being  regarded  as  the  Creator;  for  the 
Father  is  greater  than  he."  —  Genuineness,  3,  pp.  39,  40.  The  passage 
restated  is  from  the  Commentary  of  Origen  on  John  1,  §  40;  0pp.  4,  p. 
41,  edit.  De  la  Rue ;  Opp.  1,  p.  78,  edit.  Lommatzsch. 

To  the  foregoing  citations  by  Mr.  Norton  many  others  might  be  added. 
Justin  says:  "Of  which  tilings  [that  you  regard  as  not  proved]  I  will 


352  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  CH.  XI. 

Jesus.  The  former  is  devoid  of  name  because  needing 
none.**  The  latter  has  a  name.  The  former  alone  is 
ayevvTjTos,  unborn.*^  The  latter  owed  his  existence  to  the 
Father.  The  former  is  apprjTo?,  unspoken,  not  to  be  con- 
versed with.*^  The  latter  conversed  with  INIoses  from 
a  bush.  The  former  is  the  "Maker  of  all  things." *7  To 
the  latter,  whatever  his  alleged  agency  in  the  creation, 
Justin  does  not  apply  this  title.  The  former  is  ac^^apro?, 
imperisliable.*^  The  latter  owed  his  preservation  to  his 
Fatlier.*^     The  latter  was  a  god  Trpoo-Kwr/rds,  to  be  hom- 

endeavor  to  convince  you,  seeing  tluat  yon  are  conversant  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, [namely,]  that  there  is  and  [that  there]  is  mentioned  [in  Scrijature] 
another  God  and  Lord,  vtto,  subordinate  to  the  Maker  of  all  things,  who 
is  also  called  angel  [i.  e.  messenger]  because  of  his  announcing  to  men 
whatever  the  Maker  of  all  things  —  above  whom  there  is  no  other  god  — 
wishes  to  announce."  —  Dialogue,  56;  Op}^.  2,  p.  178,  edit.  Otto.  And 
again  :  "I  will  show,  0  Trypho,  that  .  .  .  only  this  very  person  —  called 
an  angel,  but  being  in  reality  a  god  —  was  seen  by,  and  conversed  with, 
Moses. "  —  Dialogue,  60 ;  O})}}-  2,  p.  200,  edit.  Otto.  See  also  other  pas- 
sages of  the  Dialogue,  in  Otto's  edition  of  the  0pp.  2,  pp.  180,  420,  422, 
424,  426,  428,  and  an  extract  from  Justin's  first  Apology  in  Christ's  Mission 
to  the  Underworld,  Appendix,  Note  A.     Cp.  Ind.  Testimony,  pp.  190,  191. 

**  See,  in  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Unckrvwrld,  note  5,  on  p.  146. 

«5  J2>ol.  1,  14,  40;  2,  12,  13;  0}^p.  1,  pp.  164  B,  234  B,  310  C,  312  D; 
Dialogue,  5,  114,  126,  127;  Oi^p.  2,  p]).  28  D,  380  A,  420  D,  422  E,  edit. 
Otto.     Compare  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  6,  r>s. 

*6  Apol.  2,  10,  V2,  13;  0pp.  1,  pp.  306  A,  310  C,  312  D;  Dialogue,  126, 
127  twice;  Op2}.  2,  pp.  420  D,  422  E,  424  B.  The  term  &^pvTOi,  as  used 
by  Justin,  is  usually  translated  ineffable,  unutterable,  a  sense  which  it 
has  in  the  first  Apology,  9,  where  applied,  not  to  the  Deity,  but  to  his 
glory.  If  the  meaning  attached  to  it  above  be  erroneous,  it  is  none  the 
less  a  mark  of  distinction,  applied  by  Justin  to  the  Father  only.  It  does 
not,  if  the  concordance  of  Trommius  can  be  relied  upon,  occur  in  the 
Septuagint ;  nor  do  1  remember  to  have  found  it  applied,  in  the  Sibylline 
Oracles,  to  the  Deity. 

«T  Dialogue,  11,  102,  116;  Opp.  2,  pp.  38  E,  344  D,  386  C. 

*"  "God  alone  is  unborn  and  [inherently]  imperishalJe,  and  on  this 
very  account  is  he  God.  All  things  [coming  into  existence]  after  him 
are  born  and  [therefore]  perishable." — Justin,  Dialogue,  5;  Opp.  2, 
p.  28  D. 

49  "  P'or  if  the  Son  of  God  be  found  to  say,  that  he  cannot  be  saved 


§  n.]      EFFECTS   OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      353 

aged.^  Justin,  in  common  with  other  Christians,  probably 
applied  the  terra  o-ifSeLv  —  meaning  to  deify,  or  recognize 
as  God  —  solely  to  the  former.^^ 

Any  distinct  personification  of  the  holy  spirit,  unless 
among  Alexandrine  Gnostics,^'^  seems  to  have  begun  in  the 

either  by  his  sonsliip,  or  strength,  or  wisdom,  but  though  sinless  .  .  . 
he  could  not  be  saved  without  God,  how  do  not  you  and  others,  expect- 
ing salvation  without  this  hope,  reason  so  as  to  deceive  j'ourselves."  — 
Justin,  Dialogue,  102;  0pp.  2,  p.  344.  The  remarks  are  based  on 
Psalm  22,  11  (Septuagint,  21,  11),  which  Psalm  the  Fathers  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Jesus,  because  of  his  quoting  on  the  cross  its  first  verse. 

^  "These  [passages  of  the  Old  Testament]  show  expressly  that  Christ 
should  be  capable  of  suffering  and  irpouKwyiThv  debv,  a  god  to  be  hom- 
aged."  —  Dialogue,  68;  0pp.  2,  p.  232  C.  "Who  is  this  that  is  called 
...  by  David  Anointed,  and  god  to  be  liomagcd?" — Dialogue,  126, 
p.  418  C.  This  remark  of  Justin  is  based  on  the  Greek  of  Psalm  72,  11 
(Septuagint,  71,  ll),  and  45,  12  (Septuagint,  44,  13).  Moses  "said  thus: 
.  .  .  Let  all  tlie  angels  of  God  do  him  homage."  —  Dialogue,  130  ;  0pp.  2, 
p.  430  C.  The  citation  is  from  Deuteronomy  32,  43.  We  Christians 
"do  homage  to,  and  love  the  Logos  of  the  Unborn  and  unspoken  (or 
ineffable)  God,  /iera  rbv  dedv,  [next]  after  God  himself."  —  Apol.  2,  13; 
0pp.  1,  p.  312  D.  Compare  Jpol.  1,  49;  Dialogue,  34,  37,  38,  52,  64, 
78  (twice),  88 ;  0pp.  1,  p.  232  E  ;  2,  pp.  112  E,  122  A,  B,  126  C,  166  D, 
214  B,  264  D,  268  E,  300  C.  See  also  in  the  Apjiendix,  Note  B,  §  i. 
No.  10. 

^^  The  verb  (xi^eiv,  as  quoted  from  Justin  in  Note  B  of  the  Appendix, 
foot-note  40,  is  probably  an  instance  of,  rather  than  a  dejiarture  from, 
ordinary  Christian  phraseology.  There  is  another  instance  of  its  use  in 
Justin  which  requires  a  supposition,  though  a  natural  one,  to  harmonize 
it  with  the  idea  that  he,  in  common  with  most,  if  not  all.  Christians, 
restricted  its  use  to  the  Supreme  Being.  The  Gnostics  regarded  Jesus 
as  superior  to  the  Jewish  Deity,  and  they,  or  some  of  them,  may  have 
designated  their  relations  to  him  by  the  term  cre'/Seiv.  Justin  says,  that 
"instead  of  deifying  Jesus,  avrl  rod  rbu  'Irjaovv  a^jSeLv,  they  confess  him 
in  name  only."  —  Dialogue,  35;  0pp.  2,  p.  116  E. 

^2  The  Alexandrine,  or  Theosophic,  Gnostics,  of  whom  the  Valentinians 
were  the  chief  representatives,  personified  many  of  the  divine  attriliutes, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  say  in  how  far  they  regarded  these  personifications 
as  distinct  beings.  According  to  them  the  Supreme  Being,  whom  —  as 
a  means  of  characterizing  the  depth  of  his  nature  —  they  called  "The 
Deep,"  had  dwelt  from  eternity  with  Thought,  also  called  Favor  and 

w 


354  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XI. 

early  part  of  tlie  tliird  centiiry.  In  the  second  century 
Justin,  in  his  lengthy  discussion  with  Trypho,  merely  en- 
deavors to  prove  a  second  being  who  may  be  called  God, 
but  nowhere  mentions  nor  discusses  the  existence  of  a 
third  one.  In  addressing  heathens  he  uses  almost  exclu- 
sively the  term  prophetic  spirit,^'^  instead  of  holy  spirit. 

Silence,  as  his  spouse.  From  tliis  union,  between  depth  of  nature  and 
silent  benevolent  thought,  sprung  Intellect  and,  for  his  bride.  Truth. 
From  the  union  of  Intellect  and  Truth  originated  the  Logos  (Reason,  in- 
cluding perhaps  creative  power)  and  Life.  From  the  union  of  Reason 
with  Life  originated  Man  and  the  Assembly.  These  constituted  the  first 
Ogdoad.  See  Irenjeus,  1,  1,  1,  1,  8,  r, ;  Norton,  Genuineness,  3,  113- 
130.  Christ  and  the  Holy  Spirit  were  produced  subsequently  to  not  a 
few  other  aeons.     They  did  not  belong  to  the  first  Ogdoad. 

63  Justin  uses  the  term  "prophetic  spirit"  in  Apology,  1,  0,  13,  31, 
33  (twice),  35,  38,  39,  40  (twice),  42,  44  (twice),  47,  48,  .51,  53  (55  ?),  «n,  63 
(twice);  0pp.  1,  pp.  150  C,  164  E,  200  B,  206  E,  208  B,  210  A,  214  C, 
E,  216  D,  218  E  (first),  220  B,  224  B,  226  B,  230  A,  232  D,  236  B,  242 
B  (248  D),  256  C,  264  B,  C. 

He  once  uses  the  term  "holy  puophetic  sPiitiT,"  AjJol.  1,  53;  0pp.  1, 
p.  242  D;  and  once  the  term  "divine  holy  prophetic  spirit,"  A2^ol.  1,  .32, 
p.  204  C ;  and  twice  the  term  "  holy  spirit,"  Apol.  1,  33,  67,  pp.  208  B, 
268  D;  and  once  the  term  "divine  spirit,"  AjjoI.  1,  32,  p.  204  B.  If 
one  or  more  passages  have  been  overlooked  in  making  out  the  above  list, 
they  can  scarcely  diminish  the  prominence  given  in  his  Apologij  to  the 
term  "prophetic  spirit." 

Justin  nowhere  distinctly  speaks  of  the  spirit  as  a  person.  In  two 
passages,  he  speaks  of  it  in  a  manner  which  may  be  illustrated  as  follows  : 
If  a  Christian  should  say  that  he  reverenced  God,  Christ,  and  revelation, 
we  should  regard  him  as  to  some  extent  distinguishing  revelation  from 
its  author  and  from  tlie  immediate  agent  through  whom  it  was  intro- 
duced ;  but  no  one  would  understand  him  as  speaking  of  a  third  person, 
nor  deem  him  inconsistent  if  he  elsewhere  treated  it  as  an  interposition  of 
God,  or  as  God  manifesting  himself  more  unmistakably  to  men.  Justin 
regarded  the  prophetic  spirit  as  a  divine  interposition  in  human  afi"airs, 
and  one  to  which  mankind  should  bow  with  reverence.  In  this  sense  he 
uses  it  in  Apol.  1,  6,  quoted  in  our  Appendix,  Note  B,  foot-note  40,  and 
also,  I  think,  in  y/^w/.  1,  13.  Its  location  in  order  and  rank  after  Christ 
may  be  because  Justin  regarded  the  prophetic  sjurit  as  a  manifestation  of 
the  Logos  in  the  Old  dispensation,  whilst  he  deemed  Christ  an  embodiment 
of  the  same  Logos  in  the  New.     Thus  interpreted  he  does  not  utter  a 


§  n.]      EFFECTS   OF   JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      355 

Even  in  the  third  century  and  later  the  distinct  person- 
ality and  divinity  of  the  holy  spirit  stood,  with  its  few 
advocates,  in  the  background,  as  compared  with  the  deifi- 
cation of  Christ,  and  is  strikingly  ignored  by  others.'^'^ 

GLARING  self-contradiction  when,  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  he  identifies  it 
with  the  Logos. 

If  we  wish  to  understand  why  Justin  in  addressing  heathens  uses  the 
phrase  "prophetic  spirit"  so  exclusively  and  mentions  tlie  holy  spirit 
but  twice,  —  one  instance  being  a  quotation  and  the  other  a  statement  of 
Christian  usage,  — we  must  remember  that  heathens  were  familiar  with 
the  idea  of  a  divine  impulse  which  communicated  foreknowledge.  They 
contested  or  denied  a  divine  influence  for  the  moral  enlightenment,  or 
purification,  of  human  beings.  See  Cicero,  DeNat.  Deorum.  3,  36,  quoted 
in  Ch.  II.  note  3.  In  dealing  with  a  Jew  the  case  was  ditt'erent,  and  for 
the  convenience  of  students  1  subjoin  some  references,  incomplete,  per- 
haps, to  his  use  of  the  word  "spirit"  in  his  Dialogue. 

The  term  "  prophetic  spirit"  is  used  in  the  Dialogue,  38,  43,  53,  139  ; 
02:)p.  2,  pp.  124  E,  138  A,  170  A,  454  B;  being  also  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Trypho  in  c.  49,  p.  160  B.  The  term  "  holy  prophetic  spirit"  occurs 
cc.  32,  56,  pp.  104  E,  178  D;  and  "divine  spirit,"  c.  9,  p.  36  D.  The 
term  "holy  spirit"  is  found  in  cc.  29,  33,  36  (twice),  54,  56  (twice),  61, 
88,  114,  124;  0/;;>.  2,  pp.  94  C,  108  B,  120  D,  122  C,  172  E,  184  C,  D, 
202  B,  306  D,  378  C,  414  C.  On  Justin's  theory  that  Jesus  was  the  deity 
whose  direct  agency  had  been  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  would 
seem  that  the  prophetic  or  divine  influence  must  have  jiroceeded,  not 
from  the  Supreme  Being,  but  from  his  subordinate.  He  affirms  {Apol. 
1,  55,  p.  248  D),  "This  was  spoken  by  a  prophet  [Lam.  4,  20]:  '  The 
spirit  in  our  presence  is  Christ  the  Lord.''  "  Another  passage  {Apol.  1,  38, 
p.  214  C)  may  have  been  intended  to  convey  the  same  meaning,  though 
it  admits  equally  well  a  diff"erent  one.  But  in  Apol.  1,  33,  p.  208  B,  C, 
he  says,  "  By  the  spirit,  therefore,  and  the  power  from  God,  we  must  un- 
derstand nothing  else  than  the  Logos,  who  is  God's  first-born,  as  Moses 
—  whom  we  have  already  shown  to  be  a  prophet  —  indicated." 

Had  Justin  regarded  the  prophetic,  or  holy,  spirit  as  a  third  deity,  or 
a  third  person  in  the  Deity,  it  is  inconceivable  that  he  should  nowhere 
have  distinctly  .stated,  nor  attempted  to  prove,  a  proposition  so  unknown 
to  those  whom  he  addressed.  Otto  thinks  that  Justin  deemed  the  spirit 
a  distinct  existence  as  an  axgel,  or  minister,  of  Jesus  Christ.  See  his 
Commcntatio  on  Justin,  p.  138. 

^*  The  Philosophumena,  or  Omnium  Hcvresium  Eefutatio,  a  work  of 
the  third  century,  devotes  four  books  to  errors  of  philosophers ;  five  more 


356  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XI. 

In  a  former  work  I  leaned  to  the  opinion  that  the  rep- 
resentation of  Christ  as  special  deity  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  originated  somewhat  earlier  than  Justin's  time.^^  This 
view  and  the  Gnostic  one  concerning  an  inferior  Deity 
who  had  appeared  to  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  were 
so  nearly  related  that,  unless  they  had  a  common  origin, 

ONE   MUST   HAVE   GIVEN    RISE   TO   THE    OTHER.      I  was  then 

ignorant,  as  other  writers  seem  to  have  been,  of  any  im- 
mcdiatc  cause  for  the  rise  of  Gnosticism.  I  liave  now  no 
doubt  that  it  originated  in  the  anti-Jewish  feeling  occa- 
sioned by  the  war  under  Hadrian,  and,  therefore,  have  no 

to  those  of  Christian  heretics  and  Jews;  and  in  the  tenth  book,  after  an 
epitome  of  philosophies  and  heresies,  hiys  down  (pp.  334  -  337)  the  true 
Christian  faith  which  recognizes  a  second  though  subordinate  God,  but 
utterly  ignores  a  third  one.  The  same  peculiarity  may  be  found  in  the 
Ejiistle  of  Orthodox  bishops  against  Paul  of  Samosata.  Eouth,  Heliq. 
Sac.  3,  p.  291.  Eouth  has  collected  in  four  volumes  the  fragments  of 
early  Christian  writers,  much  of  the  spacj,  however,  being  devoted  to 
notes.  If  his  Index,  under  the  term  "Spiritus  Sanctus,"  be  complete, 
there  is  in  his  fragments  from  the  first  three  centuries  (exclusive  of 
his  notes)  no  mention  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  God,  though  tliere  are  two 
doxologies  (2,  p.  308 ;  3,  p.  515)  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is  mentioned 
with  the  Father  and  the  Son.  The  second  of  these  instances  would  be 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  personality  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  former 
does  not  imply  it. 

Had  Syrian  Christians  believed  the  deity  of  Christ  or  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  at  the  date  when  Pseudo-Thaddeus  was  written,  it  is  incomprehen- 
sible that  this  apostle  should  have  been  represented  in  teaching  a  heathen 
monarch  as  ignoring  the  deity  of  either.  Forrest  (Hist,  of  the  Trinity, 
Amer.  edit.  pp.  39,  40)  gives  citations  from  Origen  and  Eusebius,  which, 
in  discussing  a  second  God,  ignore  a  third  one. 

^  From  the  above-mentioned  work,  published  in  1854,  the  following 
is  cojjied :  "  I  am  inclined  to  assign  a  somewhat  earlier  date  than  the  age 
of  Justin  to  this  opinion,  though  my  only  reason  for  .so  doing  is  the  strong 
suspicion  that  the  Marcionite  branch  of  Gnosticism  was,  to  a  considera- 
ble extent,  but  an  offshoot  from  this  identical  view  of  the  Catholics."  — 
Christ's  Mission  to  the  Underworld,  note  on  page  152;  3d  edit,  note  4, 
p.  146. 

The  foregoing  left  the  rise  of  Alexandrine,  or  Theosophic,  Gnosticism 
unexplained,  or  insufficiently  explained,  though  on  a  single  point  that 
system  evidently  resembled  the  then  incipient  Catholic  conception. 


§  II.]      EFFECTS   OF  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   HADRIAN.      357 

doubt  that  its  discrimination  between  the  Supreme  Being 
and  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  led  Catholics  to  dis- 
criminate in  like  manner.  Their  representation  of  Jesus 
as  God  of  the  Old  Testament  was  but  a  consequence  of 
the  Gnostic  view.  This  consequence  was,  and  for  a  long 
time  remained,  distasteful  to  the  mass  of  Christians,  espe- 
cially to  Jewish  ones.  One,  if  not  two,  generations  had 
passed  away  after  the  appearance  of  this  doctrine  when 
Tertullian,  a  Gentile  Christian,  addressing  Gentile  Chris- 
tians, says,  that  the  most  of  them  cried  out  against  it.^^ 
Touching  extra  aversion  to  it  among  Jewish  Christians, 
Justin  says,  that  they  were  less  willing  to  recei\'e  it.^" 
Origen  says,  that,  without  exception,  they  rejected  it.^ 

^  "All  the  simple,  —  not  to  call  them  inconsiderate  or  stupid,  — who 
constitute  always  the  majority  of  believers,  expavescunt,  are  horrified  at 
the  Economy.  [The  word  means  literally  "household  rule  or  law." 
Tertullian  uses  it  to  designate  a  family  arrangement  whereby  the  Father, 
as  head  of  the  family,  had  intrusted  part  of  his  duties  to  one  or  two 
others.]  .  .  .  They  proclaim  that  two,  and  already  three,  Gods  are 
preached  by  us,  but  assume  themselves  to  be  worshijipers  of  [the]  one 
God.  We,  they  say,  hold  'The  Monauchy.'  .  .  .  The  Latins  are  stu- 
dious, sonarc,  to  emi)hasize  [the  word]  '  Monarchy.'  The  Greeks,  even, 
are  unwilling  to  understand  the  'Economy.'  "  —  Tertull.  Adv.  Prax.  3. 
Tertullian  defends  himself  in  two,  not  very  consistent,  ways.  He  alleges 
(c.  3)  that  if  the  divine  Monarchy  is  not  impaired  when  administered 
through  legions  of  angels,  neither  does  it  suffer  when  administered  through 
the  Son  and  Spirit.  But  in  the  next  chapter  he  assumes  that  the  Mon- 
archy, or  sole  rule,  is  temporarily  intrusted  to  the  Son.  "  How  is  it 
possible  that  I  destroy  from  [Christian]  belief  the  Monarchy,  which  I 
retain  in  the  Son,  delivered  to  the  Son  by  the  Father  ?  .  .  .  We  see,  there- 
fore, that  the  Son  is  no  obstacle  to  the  Monarchy,  although  to-day  it  is 
held  by  the  Son  in  virtue  of  his  office  and  will  be  restored  with  his  office 
by  the  Son  to  the  Father  [after  all  things  shall  have  been  subjected  to  the 
Son]."  — TertuU.  Adv.  Prax.  4. 

The  use  by  Tertullian's  opponents  of  the  word  "already"  implies 
that  belief  in  a  third  God  was  a  recent  innovation,  and  that  the  intro- 
duction of  a  second  one  was  yet  fresh  in  their  memories. 

^^  "I  know  that  this  teacliing  seems  paradoxical,  and  esi)ecially  to 
those  of  your  [the  Jewish]  race." — ^  Justin,  Dialogue,  48;  O}^).  2,  \). 
154  C.     Compare  note  60. 

^  "When  you  regard  the  faith,  concerning  the  Saviour,  of  the  Jews 


358  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  XL 

This  repugnance  of  Jews  and  Jewish  Christians  to,  or 
horror  at,  hearing  him,  who  had  taught  in  their  streets, 
represented  as  the  God  who  had  spoken  to  Moses,  did 
not  prevent  the  new  view  from  being  aided  by  a  concep- 
tion of  Hellenistic  Judaism.  Some  Hellenist  Jews  had 
strongly  personified  the  Logos,  or  Intelligent  Agency 
of  God  in  the  universe.^^  Such  Christian  controversial- 
ists, of  heathen  origin,  as  inclined  to,  or  adopted,  the  new 
view,  treated  the  Logos  as  a  distinct  person  and  identi- 
fied it  with  their  subordinate  deity  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Tlie  chief  acceptance  of  the  view  was  probably  among 
CONTROVERSIALISTS  of  this  class.  Yet,  even  among  these, 
the  writer  of  the  Cohortatio  ad  Gr.ecos,  in  the  second 
century,  ignores  it ;  the  author  of  tlie  Clementines,  in 
emphatic  language,  condemns  it ;  ^  and  tlie  De  Monarchia 

who  believe  on  Jesus,  some  regai-ding  him  as  the  son  of  Joseph  and  ILary, 
others  of  Mary  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  Imt  without  any  belief  in  his  divine 
nature,  you  will  comprehend  how  this  blind  man  [Mark  10,  4(;--l8,  whom 
Origen  regarded  as  tyjiifying  Judaism]  says,  ^  Son  of  David,  take  pifij  on 
me.'"  —  Origen,  in  Matt.  16,  1-2;  02yp.  3,  p.  733  A. 

S9  See  Cli.  III.  notes  29,  30.      In  the  book  called  the  "Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  a  prayer  begins  as  follows:  — 

"  God  of  [our]  Fathers  and  Lord  of  compassion. 
Who  hast  formed  all  things  by  thy  Logos 
And  fashioned  man  by  thy  wisdom." 

Ch.  9,  1,  2. 

Elsewhere  the  same  book  alludes,  as  follows,  to  the  destruction  of  the 
first-born  in  Egypt :  — 

"Thy  all-powerful  Logos  from  the  heavens, 
A  destroying  warrior  from  the  regal  seats. 
Leaped  to  the  middle  of  tlie  fated  land 
Bearing  as  a  sharp  sword  thy  unam))iguous  decree. 
And  coming  to  a  stand,  he  filled  all  things  with  death. 
He  touched  heaven  [witli  his  head],  but  walked  upon  the  earth." 

Ch.  18,  V,,  Ifi. 
In  some  cases  Providence —  God's  thoughtfulness  put  into  exercise  — 
would  closely  translate  the  Jeviish  use  of  Logos.  In  others  Fiat,  or  as  in 
the  last  citation,  Exkcutive-energy  would  be  more  appropriate.  Com- 
pare Korton,  Statement  of  Reasons,  pp.  332  -  374.  On  gigantic  stature 
attributed  to  heavenly  beings  compare  pp.  259,  338. 

^'  The  Evil  One  "has  contrived  that  those  [Christians]  from  among 


§1.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  NAKKATIVE,  A.  D.   138-161.  359 

bears  for  a  title  the  rallying  cry  of  those  who  would  not 
listen  to  it.^^ 


CHAPTER   XII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  NARRATIVE,  A.  D.  138  -  180. 

§L   A.  D.  138  -  161.     Antoninus  Pius. 

The  rebellion  of  the  Jews  under  Hadrian  terminated 
their  influence  in  Europe,  though  not,  perhaps,  in  Asia.^ 
We  will,  however,  superadd  to  the  historical  narrative  an 
item  or  two  of  their  condition  under  the  Antonines.  The 
elder  of  tliese  emperors  was  a  man  of  better  judgment, 
apparently,  than  his  successor.     Good  dispositioned  him- 

the  Gentiles,  who  are  giving  up  the  divinity  of  images,  should  introduce 
belief  in  a  plurality  of  other  gods,  that  on  their  cessation  from  their 
Karu!  debasing  [or  "  earthly  "]  polytheistic  madness,  they  may  be  misled  to 
speak  otherwise,  or  even  worse,  against  the  Sole-rulership,  Movapx^as,  of 
God,  so  that,  not  giving  a  chief  place  to  this  Sole-rulership,  they  may 
be  unable  to  receive  mercy."  —  Horn.  3,  3.  "  Denial  of  Him  is  for  a  pro- 
fessed mouotheist  to  allege  until  death  another  God,  whether  [as  the 
Gnostics  ?]  a  greater,  or  [as  those  who  deify  Jesus  ?J  a  less."  —  Horn.  3,  7. 
"  Consider  before  all  things  tliat  no  one  is  joint  ruler  with  him  ;  no  one 
participates  in  his  name,  on  which  [very]  account  he  is  called  God.  For 
he  is  not  only  called,  but  is.  Alone,  and  it  is  not  lawful  to  think  or  men- 
tion another  [as  God],  but  if  any  one  should  dare  [it]  his  soul  will  be 
perpetually  punished."  —  Horn.  3,  ;!7.  "Our  Lord  .  .  .  did  not  proclaim 
himself  God.  .  .  .  The  Father  is  unborn,  the  Son  is  born  ;  the  born  can- 
not compare  with  the  unborn  or  self-born."  — Horn.  16,  15,  !(!.  The  woik 
is  sometimes  called  Clementines,  sometimes  Clementine  Homilies. 

^^  See  TertuUian,  Adv.  Prax.  3,  quoted  in  note  56. 

^  The  respect  shown  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  by  Eastern 
Christians  to  the  Jewish  sabbath  (see  Ch.  XI.  foot-note  35)  renders 
probable  that  Jewish  influence  was  not  terminated  in  Asia.  The  Jews  in 
that  section  cannot  have  been  everywhere  in  open  revolt.  See  the  last 
paragraph  of  a  quotation  from  Dio  Cassius  in  Ch.  X.  foot-note  133. 


360  JUDAISM   AT  ROME.  [CH.  XII. 

self,  he  seems  to  have  repressed  harshness  and  extortion 
in  others,  and,  though  several  times  involved  in  war,  to 
have  cultivated  amicable  relations  with  foreign  nations.^ 
The  Jewish  rebellion,  which  he  suppressed,^  must  proba- 
bly, therefore,  have  been  a  remnant  of  the  troubles  under 
Hadrian,  or  else  the  act  of  a  few,  stimulated  by  local  op- 
pression or  by  some  of  the  calamities  which  befell  the 
Eomans.^ 

§  II.   A.  D.  161  -  180.     Marcus  Antoninus. 

Marcus,  the  second  of  the  Antonines,  had  some  good 
points  in  his  character ;  but  he  was  weak,  and  his  preju- 
dices in  favor  of  old  institutions^  could  not  but  bias  his 
judgment  in  matters  pertaining  to  Jews  and  Christians, 
while  his  love  of  approbation  and  his  inability  to  say  no, 
must,  not  merely  in  religious,  but  in  all  administrative 
matters,  have  rendered  him  an  easy  prey  to  such  as  un- 
derstood taking  advantage  of  his  foibles.^    His  prejudices 

^  Autonimis  Pius,  "appointing,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  administra- 
tion of  public  aflairs  men  who  made  most  account  of  justice,  conferred 
honor  on  good  officials  and  removed  the  bad,  without  harshness,  from 
public  affairs.  Not  only,  therefore,  was  he  admired  b}'  his  own  country- 
men, but  by  foreign  nations,  so  that  some  of  the  neighboring  barbarians, 
laying  aside  their  arms,  committed  to  the  emperor's  decisions  the  settling 
of  their  difficulties."  —  Suidas,  Vol.  3,  p.  234;  copied  also  in  the  Abridg- 
ment of  Dio  Cass.  70,  o  ;  Vol.  4,  pp.  394-396. 

^  See  Appendix,  Note  J,  foot-note  14. 

*  "These  adversities  happened  in  his  time.  The  famine,  of  which  we 
have  spoken ;  the  destruction  of  the  Circus ;  an  earthquake,  whereby 
cities  at  Rhodes  and  Asia  were  thrown  down ;  .  .  .  and  a  fire  at  Rome 
which  destroyed  four  hundred  blocks  or  houses."  —  Capitolinus,  .-^Mto- 
nin.  Pius,  9 ;  Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  35.  "  Under  Antoninus  [Pius]  a 
most  frightful  earthquake  is  said  to  have  taken  place  in  the  regions  of 
Bithynia  and  the  Hellespont."  — Abridgment  of  Dio  Cass.  70,  4 ;  Vol. 
4,  p.  394. 

6  See  Ch.  II.  note  41. 

^  The  elder  Antoninus  had  taken  good  care  of  the  finances.  He  abol- 
ished the  salaries  of  all  idlers  {Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  33),  husbanded 
his  resources,  and  seems  to  have  been  constantly  well  supplied  with  funds. 
Marcus,  on  the  contrary,  when  about  to  make  war,  sold  the  furniture  and 
ornaments  of  his  palace  in  order  to  provide  means  (Capitolinus,  Antonin. 


§n.]  CHRONOLOGICAL  XAERATIVE,   A.  D.  161-180.  3G1 

swayed  him  in  retaining  at  the  east  a  brutal  commander  ^ 
who  found  pleasure  in  annoying  Jews  and  outraging  their 
religious  sentiments,^  while  his  weakness  made  him  per- 
mit barbarities  at  Iionie  which  his  judgment  condemned, 
and  against  which,  probably,  his  feelings  revolted.^ 

In  the  writings  of  this  emperor  we  can  discover,  what 
perhaps  was  equally  true  in  the  days  of  his  jDredecessor, 
that  Judaism  at  Rome,  as  an  influence  to  be  feared  by 
conservatives,  had  been  superseded  by  Christianity.  The 
emperor's  sneer  is  not  directed  at  "  Foreign  Rites,"  but  at 
Cliristians.-^*^   Conservatism,  however,  remained  essentially 

16;  Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  51).  This  might  excite  favorabk^  comment, 
but  was  a  poor  substitute  for  public  economy  and  careful  supervision. 
Pcssibly  the  time  which  he  devoted  to  public  lecturing  before  his  depart- 
ure for  the  war  might  have  been  better  spent  in  making  thoughtful  pro- 
vision for  his  soldiers. 

■^  Avidius  Cassius  "first  invented  that  kind  of  punishment.  He  planted 
a  pole  one  hundred  and  eiglity  feet  high,  .  .  .  and  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom  bound  those  who  were  condemned,  and  set  fire  at  the  foot,  so  that 
he  killed  some  who  were  burnt,  others  who  were  tortured  by  the  smoke, 
and  others  by  fear."  — Gallicanus,  Avid.  Cass.  4  ;  Hist.  August,  p.  71. 

When  this  Cassius  was  in  command  on  the  Danube,  an  auxiliary  force 
under  direction  of  his  centurions  discovered  a  body  of  the  enemy,  off  its 
guard,  and  defeated  it.  When  they  returned  with  high  hopes  to  Cassius, 
he,  instead  of  rewarding,  crucified  the  centurions,  an  unheard-of  proced- 
ure ;  see  Avid.  Cciss.  4  ;  Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  72. 

Concerning  this  savage,  the  emperor  writes  :  "  I  have  given  the  Syrian 
legions  to  Avidius  Cassius,  .  .  .  for  they  cannot  be  governed  save  by  an- 
cient discipline."  —  Avid.  Cass.  5  ;  Scri2)t.  Hist.  August,  p.  73. 

^  Avidius  Cassius  "always  inspected  the  arms  of  the  soldiers  on  the 
seventh  day, .  .  .  the  exercise  of  the  seventh  day  was  of  all  the  soldiers." 

—  Avid.  Cass.  6  ;  Sa'ipt.  Hist.  August,  p.  73. 

^  "  At  the  request  of  the  populace  [Marcus  Antoninus]  ordered,  indeed, 
a  lion  to  be  brought  into  [the  arena]  which  had  been  taught  (?)  to  eat  hu- 
man beings,  but  he  neither  witnessed  him,  nor  emancipated  his  teaclier." 

—  Dio  Cass.  71,  29  ;  Vol.  4,  p.  438.  Yet  he  censures  {Dc  Rchus,  10,  s) 
not  the  brutal  spectators,  but  their  unphilosophical  victims. 

10  "Wliat  a  soul  is  that,  which,  when  separation  from  the  body  be- 
comes necessary,  is  ready  for  extinction,  or  dispersion,  or  continued 
existence,  a  readiness  resulting  from  its  own  judgment,  not  from  mere 
obstinacy  as  [in]  the  Christians."  —  M.  Antoninus,  De  Rebus,  11,  3. 


362  JUDAISM   AT  EOME.  [CH.  XII. 

unchanged,  though  it  had  a  different  antagonist.  While 
pestilence  raged,  and  when  a  thorough  cleansing  of  the 
city  was,  no  doubt,  desirable,  the  emperor,  by  the  multi- 
tude of  his  sacrifices,^^  made  it  a  public  slaughter-house 
in  a  fashion  which  would  have  shocked  a  modern  sanitary 
committee.  His  extravagance  in  this  direction  may  have 
caused  an  antagonistic  extravagance,  of  physically  less 
injurious  kind,  among  some  monotheists.-^^ 

The  priests  whom  the  emperor  summoned  from  differ- 
ent directions  were  mostly  perhaps  created  for  the  occa- 
sion. Even  under  Claudius,  a  century  earlier,  all  knowl- 
edge concerning  heathen  rites  had  died  out.^^  How  far 
these  doings  originated  with  the  emperor  and  how  far 
with  his  advisers  may  be  a  question.^*     Christian  writ- 

11  The  statement  in  Smith's  Dictionary,  Vol.  1,  p.  440,  col.  2,  that 
"  victims  were  offered  to  the  gods  with  the  most  unsparing  profusion," 
seems  to  be  implied,  rather  than  asserted,  in  the  life  of  this  emperor  by 
Julius  Capitolinus,  13,  21,  in  Scrijjt.  Hist.  Augicst.  i^p.  48,  54.  Com- 
pare Appendix,  Note  J,  foot-note  14  near  its  close. 

^  The  Recognitions  of  Clement  say,  concerning  blight,  hail,  and 
pestilence  :  "  From  the  beginning  of  the  world  there  was  nothing  of  these 
things,  but  they  originated  in  the  impiety  of  men  [their  daefieia  ?  non- 
recognition  of  God],  .  .  .  altars  kindled  to  demons  have  also  polluted 
THE  Ain  with  the  impure  smoke  of  sacrifices,  and  so  at  lenoth  the  ele- 
ments became  corrupt."  —  Book  8,  cc.  48,  51.  The  Clementine  Homilies 
(3,  4."))  maintain  that  sacrifices  in  the  Jewish  dispensation  were  not  by  the 
command  of  God. 

1^  See  extract  from  Tacitus,  Annals,  11,  15,  quoted  in  note  126  on  p. 
225. 

1*  The  rule  of  action  adopted  by  Marc  Antonine  rendered  him  the  tool 
of  the  aristocracy.  "  He  always,  before  doing  anything  in  war,  or  in  civil 
matters,  consulted  men  of  rank  optimatibus.  Moreover  his  especial 
opinion  always  was,  'It  is  more  equitable  that  I  should  follow  the  counsel  of 
so  many  and  such  frie^ids,  than  that  so  many  and  such  [men]  should  follow  my 
wish  [that]  of  a  single  friend.'  "  • —  Capitolinus,  M.  Antonin.  22 ;  Script. 
Hist.  August,  p.  55.  This  was  an  easy  method  of  shirking  responsibility. 
The  aristocracy,  doubtless,  knew  how  to  employ  him  in  an  apparently 
commendable  manner.  According  to  Dio  Cassius  (71,  (i),  he  "often," 
in  the  administration  of  justice,  devoted  eleven  or  twelve  days  to  a  case, 
sitting  until  night,  and  instead  of  enjoining  brevity  "  he  habitually  com- 
manded abundance  of  water  to  be  ineasuied  out  to  the  pleaders  ".in  the 
water  glasses  for  the  measurement  of  time. 


§  1.]         MORAL,   LITERARY,   AND   MENTAL   CULTURE.  363 

ings  render  probable  that  these  proceedings  were  accom- 
panied by  a  persecution  of  Christians.  The  conservative 
party,  however,  did  not  yet  feel  their  cause  so  desperate 
as  in  the  days  of  Arnobius.^^ 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

HUMAN   CULTURE. 

§  L    Moral,  Literary,  and  Mental. 

A  FULL  treatise  on  the  above  heading  would  require  a 
volume.  The  object  of  the  following  remarks  is  simply 
to  point  out  some  relations  between  these  three  classes 
of  culture,  and  to  draw  a  lesson  from  history  as  to  their 
value. 

Moral  culture  is  a  prerequisite  to  the  safe  establishment 
of  free  institutions,^  and  is  necessary  even  to  prevent 
disintegration  of  society.^     To  individuals  it  is  a  most 

«  See  Ch.  V.  note  64. 

1  "The  spirit  of  liberty  is  not  merely,  as  multitudes  imagine,  a  jeal- 
ousy of  our  own  particular  rights,  an  unwillingness  to  be  oppressed  our- 
selves, but  a  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  and  an  unwillingness  that 
any  man,  whether  high  or  low,  should  be  wronged  and  trampled  under 
foot."  — Channing,  Works,  Vol.  5,  p.  341. 

2  "There  may  be  much  intellectual  culture  [compare  Seneca,  Epist. 
88,  -2,  cited  on  ]iage  49]  which  will  not  tend  even  indirectly  to  form  men 
to  the  ready  practice  of  their  duties,  or  to  bind  them  together  in  mutual 
sympathy  and  forbearance,  unless  it  be  united  with  just  conceptions  of 
our  nature  and  the  objects  of  action.  Let  us  form  in  fancy  a  nation  of 
mathematicians,  like  La  Place  or  La  Lande,  ostentatious  of  their  atlu'ism ; 
naturalists  as  irreligious  and  impure  as  Buffon ;  artists  as  accomplished 
as  David,  the  friend  of  Robespierre  ;  philosophers,  like  Hobbes  and 
Mandeville,  Helvetius  and  Diderot ;  men  of  genius,  like  Byron,  Goethe, 
and  Voltaire ;  orators  as  powerful  and  profligate  as  Mirabeau ;  and  hav- 
ing placed  over  them  a  monarch  as  able  and  unprincipled  as  the  second 
Frederic  of  Prussia,  let  us  consider  what  would  be  the  contlition  of  this 


364  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

important  element  in  the  formation  of  sound  judgments.^ 
In  its  absence  tlie  mental  powers  are  frequently  misdi- 
rected and  frittered  away,  or  clouded  by  bad  I'eelings,  or 
wasted  in  personal  disputes,*  or  impeded  by  self-indul- 
gence, or  impaired  by  physical  vices.  These  truths,  tliough 
recognized  and  inculcated  by  some,  have  been  too  little 
appreciated. 

Another  fact  unnoticed,  or  too  little  noticed,  is  that 

MORAL  PURPOSE  IS  A  DIRECT  AND  POWERFUL  STIMULUS 
TO  MENTAL  DEVELOPMENT.  If  two  individuals  of  equal 
capacity  start  in  life,  one  with  moral  aims  earnestly  held 
and  the  other  without  tliem,  the  former  will  far  more  cer- 
tainly than  the  latter  become  intelligent.  Moral  purpose 
forces  upon  us  daily  questions  of  right  and  wrong  towards 
our  fellow-men,  our  family,  and  ourselves.  Attention  to 
these  questions  creates  a  habit'  of  observation  and  re- 

highly  intellectual  community,  and  how  many  generations  miglit  pass 
before  it  were  laid  waste  by  gross  sensuality  and  ferocious  passions.  So 
far  only  as  men  are  impressed  with  a  sense  of  their  relations  to  each 
other,  to  God,  and  to  eternity,  are  they  capable  of  liberty  and  the  bless- 
ings of  social  order." — Norton,  Statement  of  Reasons,  pp.  25,  26.  "The 
exaltation  of  talent,  as  it  is  called,  above  virtue  and  religion,  is  the  curse 
of  the  age.  Talent  is  worshipped ;  but,  if  divorced  from  rectitude,  it 
will  prove  more  of  a  demon  than  a  god."  —  Channiug,  JVorks,  Vol.  2, 
p.  362. 

^  "Whoever  desires  that  his  intellect  may  grow  up  to  soundness,  to 
healthy  vigor,  must  begin  with  moral  discipline.  Reading  and  study  are 
not  enough  to  perfect  the  power  of  thought.  One  thing  above  all  is  need- 
ful, and  that  is,  the  Disinterestedness  which  is  the  very  soul  of  virtue. 
To  gain  truth,  which  is  the  great  object  of  the  understanding,  I  must  seek 
it  disinterestedly.  Here  is  the  first  and  grand  condition  of  intellectual 
progress.  .  .  .  Without  this  fairness  of  mind,  which  is  only  another 
phrase  for  disinterested  love  of  truth,  great  native  powers  of  understand- 
ing are  perverted  and  led  astray  ;  genius  runs  wild  ;  '  the  light  within  us 
becomes  darkness.' "  —  Channing,  IVurks,  Vol.  2,  pp.  360,  361. 

*  Let  any  one,  after  reading  in  Thiebault  {Anecdotes  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  Vol.  2,  pp.  384-399)  the  quarrels  between  Maupertuis  and  Vol- 
taire, and  b(!tween  the  latter  and  Frederic,  a-sk  himself  whether  it  were 
possible  in  an  atmosphere  of  contention,  bc^fittiug  grown-up  children, 
that  human  judgment  should  not  be  warped  and  distorted  by  malevolent 
feeling. 


§  I.]     MORAL,  LITERARY,  AND  MENTAL  CULTURE.     365 

FLECTION  which  does  more  for  mental  development  than 
any  other  one  agency.  An  individual  without  moral 
aims  may,  or  may  not,  derive  from  his  surroundings  in 
life  a  constant  inducement  to  effort.  In  most  cases  he 
will  not,  and,  even  when  he  does,  his  judgment  is  more 
likely  to  be  warped  by  feeling  or  self-interest.  These 
remarks  are  in  a  yet  greater  degree  true  of  two  commu- 
nities. One  in  which  moral  aims  are  prominent  will 
inevitably  become  intelligent  far  more  rapidly  than  an- 
other wliich  places  such  aims  in  the  background. 

Literary  culture,  aside  from  its  indirect  aid  to  morality 
and  intelligence  by  opening  stores  of  human  experience, 
supplies  a  want  which,  if  unsupplied,  would  bar  moral, 
as  other,  progress.  It  furnishes  terms  whereby  we  can 
express  to  ourselves  and  lay  up  distinctly  in  memory  the 
result  of  our  observations.  As  arithmetical  calculations 
would  become  a  mass  of  confusion  if  we  had  but  one  term 
or  figure  for  a  great  variety  of  numbers,  so  in  morals  and 
in  estimating  varieties  of  human  character,  if  things  es- 
sentially different  have,  through  poverty  of  language,  to 
be  expressed  by  one  term,  they  become  readily  confused. 
Moreover,  communication  on  moral  topics  with  others  is, 
under  such  circumstances,  difficult  and  imperfect. 

Mental  culture  —  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  and  of 
the  capacity  to  use  it^  —  maybe  promoted  by  a  variety 
of  outside  aids  and  incitements.  It  has  an  inherent  "u-orth 
because  of  ability  which  it  imparts  for  increasing  our  own 
welfare  and  that  of  others.  It  has  also,  in  civilized  so- 
ciety, much  bearing  on  moral  culture,  not  merely  of  the 
community,  but  of  individuals.  The  co-operation  of  in- 
telligence with  individual  morality  is  exerted  in  a  variety 

^  "Intellectual  culture  consists,  not  chiefly,  as  many  are  apt  to  think, 
in  accumulating  information,  though  this  is  important,  but  in  building 
up  a  force  of  thought  which  may  be  turned  at  will  on  any  subjects,  on 
which  we  are  called  to  pass  judgment.  This  force  is  manifested  in  the 
concentration  of  the  attention,  in  accurate,  penetrating  observation,  in 
reducing  complex  subjects  to  their  elements.  ...  To  build  up  that 
strength  of  mind  which  apprehends  and  cleaves  to  great  universal  truths, 
is  the  highest  intellectual  self-culture."  —  Channing,  Works,  Vol.  2, 
pp.  362,  363. 


366  JUDxVISM   AT   KOME.  [CH.  XIII. 

of  ways,  direct  and  indirect.  It  brings  us  in  contact  with 
a  wider  public  opinion,  thus  aiding  emancipation  from 
local  errors  in  morality.  It  enables  us  to  study  more  dis- 
criminatingly the  actions  and  characters  of  our  neighbors, 
as  also  the  influences  to  which  they  are  subjected,  and 
thus  not  only  obviates  causeless  dissensions  and  jealous- 
ies, but  unveils  opportunities  of  kindness.  It  facilitates 
scrutiny  into  the  experience  whether  of  ourselves  or  of 
others,  thus  guarding  us  against  missteps,  innocent  in 
themselves,  which  would  render  subsequent  adherence  to 
morality  more  difficult.  It  prevents  our  being  misled  by 
skilful  misrepresentation  of  wrong  as  if  it  were  right. 
It  prepares  us  against  moral  emergencies  by  suggesting 
questions  and  aiding  reflection,  thus  rendering  possible 

WELL-MATURED  OPINIONS  OF  THE  COURSE  TO  BE  PURSUED  IN 

MANY  CONTINGENCIES  OF  LIFE.  It  opens  facilities  for  inter- 
course with  the  morally  judicious  and  wise.  It  strength- 
ens our  capacity  for  physical  and  moral  self-discipline. 

The  foregoing  assumes  that  conscience  merely  enjoins 
doing  right  and  avoiding  wrong.  In  some  cases  right  and 
wrong  are  obvious.  But  in  the  vast  majority  of  questions 
which  civilization  and  culture  bring  with  them,  our  con- 
science by  commanding  us  to  do  right  imposes  an  obliga- 
tion of  first  ascertaining  it.^ 

Aside  from  the  moralities  of  private  life  there  exists 
under  free  governments  a  class  of  duties  unrecognized 
by  absolute  monarchies/  those,  namely,  which  pertain  to 

^  Conscience  may  require  a  mechanic  to  do  his  work  well,  but  cannot 
by  intuition  decide  for  him  the  requisite  strength  of  a  bridge,  a  boilei', 
or  an  axle ;  nor  for  a  conscientious  legislator  the  relative  effect  of  differ- 
ent proposed  laws ;  nor  for  a  professional  man  the  exact  proportion  of 
time  due  to  his  family  and  to  his  patients,  or  clients,  who  need  and  de- 
pend on  his  aid  for  their  lives,  or  means  of  living.  A  business  man  in 
pecuniary  embarrassment  cannot,  in  most  cases,  tell  by  intuition  whether 
an  extra  loan  will  extricate  him  and  permit  justice  to  all  his  creditors, 
or  whether  it  will  but  increase  their  number.  The  conscientiously  be- 
nevolent may  need  debate  as  to  whether  they  should  give  or  withhold. 
If  multitudinous  questions  of  right  and  wrong  could  be  detcriuined  with- 
out thought,  conscience  would  cease  to  develop  the  mental  powers. 

">  In  the  winter  of  1840-41,  wliile  conversing  one  evening  at  Berlin,  I 


§  I.]  MORAL,   LITERARY,  AND   MENTAL   CULTURE.  367 

improvement  or  development  of  the  community  and  to 
amendment  of  its  organization  or  legislation.  Nothing  is 
plainer  than  that,  in  the  absence  of  intelligent  morality, 
these  will  be  badly  performed,  or  will  remain  undone. 

If  we  now  turn  to  Greek  and  Eoman  history,  we  are 
taught  the  value  of  moral  aims.  Where  monotheism  had 
spread  these  aims,  namely,  in  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and 
Northern  Egypt,  we  find  most  peace,  industry,  intelli- 
gence, and  general  culture.^  The  coincidence  between  the 
rise  of  this,  so  called,  Greek  Culture  and  the  advent  of 
monotheistic  influence  favors  the  supposition  that  it  was 
chiefly  due  to  moral  aims  which  that  influence  diffused. 
In  the  fourth  century  before  the  Christian  era  we  find  the 
Jews  already  prominent  in  two  of  these  countries,  whilst 
the  indirect  evidence  of  their  subsequent  numbers  assures 
us  that  the  same  had  taken  place  in  the  remaining  one. 

needed  the  German  expression  for  public  spirit  and  asked  it  from  an  old 
gentleman  who  considered  it  for  a  time,  then  debated  it  with  others,  and 
finally  told  me,  "There  is  no  corresponding  term  in  German,  and  the 
reason  for  it  is,  we  do  not  have  the  thing.  The  police  takes  care  of  every- 
thing here."  The  terra  "  Gemeinniitzigkeitsgeist "  might,  under  free 
institutions,  readily  acquire  the  sense  of  public  spirit.  At  present,  how- 
ever, it  scarcely  means  more  than  public  benevolence.  In  the  year  1840, 
■while  the  author  was  in  Germany,  a  carefully  written  article  in  a  lead- 
ing newspaper  of  Berlin,  after  mentioning  that  a  visitation  of  prisons, 
proposed  by  Elizabeth  Fr}',  had  been  declined,  added  the  following  : 
"This  decision  cannot  but  be  approved  even  by  one  of  those  who  think 
us  enlightened  enough  now  and  then  to  take  care  of  matters  of  common 
interest  without  always  waiting  for  the  commencement  to  be  made  by 
the  government."  An  old  man,  in  one  of  the  more  liberal  countries  of 
continental  Europe,  wrote  me  in  the  same  year ;  "  Until  we  obtain  truly 
republican  institutions  we  shall  always  find,  that  whatever  we  may  un- 
dertake for  the  benefit  of  society  at  large  will  be  opposed  by  the  people 
in  authority,  unless  we  obtain  their  protection  and  patronage  previously  to 
giving  any  publicity  to  our  proceedings."  Cp.  pp.  95,  n.  65  and  577,  n.  59. 
^  Compare  in  notes  23,  24,  of  Ch.  II.  the  remarks  of  Cicero  concerning 
Asia  Minor,  and  of  Tacitus  concerning  Syria.  The  latter  country  is 
designated  (Tacitus,  Hist.  2,  SO)  as  "peaceful  and  wealthy."  The  pros- 
perity of  Asia  Minor  (see  p.  197)  made  consular  j>atricians  quarrel  for  its 
possession  as  for  a  prize.     Alexandrine  culture  is  well  known. 


368  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

During  and  after  this  century  we  find  medicine  and  as- 
tronomy assuming  position  as  sciences^  in  these  partly 
monotheized  lands  and  a  body  of  intelligent  moralists, 
the  Stoics,  coming  into  existence.  In  Greece  proper  this 
culture  did  not  exist.^*^  In  Judaea,  where  a  blending  of 
political  and  religious  authority  had  substituted  ritual  ob- 

^  Hippocrates,  who  is  said  (Smith,  Diet,  of  Biog.  Vol.  2,  p.  483,  col.  1) 
to  have  died  b.  c.  357,  was  the  earliest  physician  who  could  be  called 
scientific.     At  a  later  date  schools  of  note  grew  up. 

^°  Not  one  among  the  prominent  physicians  or  astronomers  of  antiqnity 
originated  from  Greece.  Not  a  man  of  science  belonged  to  her.  The 
temi)les  of  Athens  evinced  professional  skill  and  taste  in  their  architects ; 
but  when  we  learn,  that  at  the  date  of  their  erection,  "  the  meanness  of 
the  private  houses  formed  a  striking  contrast  to  the  magnificence  of  the 
public  buildings"  (Smith,  Did.  of  Gcog.  Vol.  1,  p.  264,  col.  1;  art. 
Athence,  §vil.),  the  inference  seems  unavoidable,  that,  for  the  erection 
of  these  latter,  skilled  labor  and  superintendence  were  imported.  When 
Cicero  studied  at  Athens,  two,  at  least,  of  his  three  instructors,  Antiochus 
and  Demetrius,  were  from  Syria,  and  he  went  subsequently  to  Asia  Minor 
to  perfect  himself.     The  Stoic  teachers  at  Athens  were  all  immigrants. 

Aristotle  might  seem  an  exception  to  the  remark  that  no  man  of  sci- 
ence belonged  to  Greece.  He  was,  however,  not  born  in  Greece,  but  in 
Macedonia.  His  guardian,  Proxenus,  was  a  resident  of  Atarneus,  a  town 
of  Mysia  in  Asia  Minor,  where  the  city  ruler  Hermias  (Diog.  Laert. 
Aristot.  5)  allowed  Aristotle  great  privileges.  His  father's  friendship 
with  Proxenus,  and  his  profession,  that  of  physician,  render  it  probable 
that  he  also  (see  Note  M)  came  from  Asia  ]\Iinor.  Aristotle  was  driven 
from  Athens  (Origen,  Adv.  Cels.  1,  (i.". ;  Diog.  Laert.  Aristot.  7)  on  a 
charge  of  dai^eia,  unbelief,  and  had  to  leave  the  city  secretly.  ,  He  shows 
acquaintance  with  monotheism,  his  opinion  of  God  being  analogous  to 
the  Stoic  one.  His  argument  for  the  divine  existence  is  based  on  the 
capacity  of  self-motion.  (Compare  Appendix,  Note  K,  foot-note  37.) 
"The  boundary  of  the  whole  heaven,  that  which  encloses  all  time  and 
infinity,  is  the  immortal  and  divine  aldiv  [del  dv],  yEon,  named  fiom  his 
ever  existing."  — Aristotle,  De  Cxlo,  1,  (t;  0pp.  2,  p.  382,  lines  50-53. 
To  this  Being  he,  in  the  next  line,  as  I  understand  him,  attributes  the 
existence  and  life  of  everything  else.  Compare  views  of  liis  disciples  in 
Origen,  Adv.  Cels.  2,  1.3.  See  Appendix,  Note  K,  for  monotheistic  views 
in  his  predecessors,  Xenophon,  Plato,  and  Heraclitus.  His  thoughts  of 
his  father  Nicomachus  must  have  been  blended  with  moral  teaching,  for 
he  termed  his  work  on  Ethics  "  Nicomachean." 


§  I  ]  MORAL,   LITERARY,   AND   MENTAL    CULTURE.  369 

servances  for  moral  aims,  this  culture  was  also  unknown. 
In  Italy  monotheism  —  though  some  of  its  literature  had 
been  proscribed  and  destroyed  in  B.  C.  13  or  12  —  en- 
countered its  most  direct  and  violent  persecution  after 
the  death  of  Augustus.  Whether  the  better  features  of 
the  Augustan  age  were  not  due  to  its  intiuence  is  a  fair 
question.  From  that  time  forward  the  aristocracy  strove 
with  A^arying  success  to  expel,  or  suppress,  to  annoy,  or 
hold  it  in  check  at  Eome.  A  consequence  of  tliis  was, 
that  the  attractions  of  the  capital  and  the  world's  wealth 
which  had  been  brought  thither  could  not  make  Greek 
culture  indigenous  ;^^  nor  even  lure  it  to  any  great  extent 
from  the  provincial  towns  which  enjoyed  medical  and 
astronomical  skill  unknown  at  liome.  Three  centuries 
after  the  Christian  era  these  proviiices,  in  spite  of  Roman 
misgovernment  and  exaction,  had  so  outstripped  the  rest 
of  the  empire,  that  Constantine,  from  motives  of  self- 
interest,  professed  their  faith  and  built  a  new  capital 
adjacent  to  the  strongest  of  them. 

When  political  control  was  placed,  by  the  triumph  of 
Christianity,  in  professedly  Christian  hands,  the  mistake 
was  made  of  supposing  that  Christian  authorities  ought 
to  care  for  and  superintend  Christian  faith  and  observ- 
ances.12     A  result  of  this  was,  that  human  dogmas  and 

11  '«  Very  few  paucissimi  of  the  Romans  have  touched  it  [tlie  medical 
art],  and  they  immediately  became  renegades  into  [the  ranks  of]  the 
Greeks."  —  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  29,  8,  2.     Compare  on  p.  12  note  27. 

^■^  The  mistake  that  Christian  authorities  ought  to  take  interest  in,  and 
supervise  Christian  teaching  and  institutions  was  to  some  extent  honest, 
though  in  larger  measure  due  to  the  love  of  control.  So  far  as  honest  it 
resulted  from  the  inability  of  liuman  beings  to  divest  themselves  of  the 
belief,  that  a  Christian  government  should  do  as  much  for  Cliristianity 
as  they  had  been  accustomed  to  see  the  heathen  government  doing  for 
heathenism.  Early  education  is  often  hard  to  unlearn.  A  lady  in  re- 
publican Geneva  —  herself  connected  with  the  liberal  wing  of  the  state 
church  —  was  horrified  at  learning  from  nie,  that  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment made  no  provision  to  teach  children  the  Christian  religion. 
De  Wette,  a  scholar,  exiled  for  real  or  supposed  sympathy  with  the  anti- 
monarchical  party  and  counted  usually  among  liberalist  theologians, 
must,  as  his  words  imjily,  have  been  ecj^ually  shocked  at  the  thought  of 
16*  X 


370  JUDAISM   AT   ROME,  [CH.  Xni. 

follies  soon  occupied  more  prominence  than  practical 
monotheism.  The  sense  of  individual  responsibility  to 
God  was  weakened  or  displaced  by  the  degree  in  which 
men's  opinions  and  actions  were  subordinated  to  eccle- 
siastical authority  backed  by  civil  power.  Moral  aims 
became  less  conspicuous  and  human  culture  stood  still  or 
receded.  Centuries  were,  however,  needed  to  undo  what 
centuries  had  built  up.  When  the  Arabs  overran  these 
early  monotheized  provinces  they  found  there,  and  brought 
with  tliem  into  Spain,  a  knowledge  of  medicine  and 
astronomy,  which  made  their  universities  the  resort 
of  Europe,^^  and,  in  the  days  of  the  Crusades,  consid- 


separating  Church  and  State.  "What,"  he  says,  "  is  a  jihysical  perse- 
cution of  Christian  belief  with  fire  and  sword  compared  ...  to  the 
flattery  and  imposition  of  the  so-called  love  for  freedom.  .  .  .  According 
to  the  counsel  of  those  who  assume,  and  are,  therefore,  supposed,  to 
stand  on  the  summit  of  present  culture,  the  state  should  renounce 
Christian  princii>le  and  ]ilace  itself  on  the  ground  of  indifference,  if  not 
of  atheism."  —  De  Wette,  Erklacrung  der  Offenharung,  p.  vi.  De 
Wette  ma}'  have  confronted  irreligion,  but  the  non-intervention  by  gov- 
ernment in  religious  matters,  so  well  established  and  cherished  in  our 
own  country,  would  to  him  have  seemed  "indiffcrentism." 

^^  "The  literary  institutions  of  the  Spanish  Mohammedans  were  so 
celebrated  that  they  were  frequented  by  Christian  students  from  all  coun- 
tries of  Europe."  —  New  Am.  Cyclopeedia,  Vol.  14,  p.  809,  art.  Spain. 
"  Under  the  Christian  emperors  every  town  of  a  certain  size  had  its  archi- 
aters  (chief  physicians),  and  no  one  could  practise  medicine  without 
having  undergone  an  examination  hy  them.  They  were  paid  by  the 
state,  and  in  return  were  bound  to  attend  the  poor  gi-atuitously  .  .  . 
Hospitals  and  dispensaries  owe  their  origin  to  Christianity  ;  the  pagans 
appear  to  have  had  no  analogous  institutions.  .  .  .  While  the  western 
empire  had  sunk  into  barbarism,  and  the  eastern,  sadly  limited,  was  strug- 
gling for  existence,  medical  science  found  refuge  for  a  time  among  the 
Arabians.  .  .  .  Their  writings  consist  mainly  of  compilations  from  the 
Greek  authors,  .  .  .  and  all  the  knowledge  Europe  had  of  the  Greek 
authors  was  derived  from  the  translations  of  the  Arabs.  ...  As  order 
again  began  to  emerge  from  the  chaos  of  barbarism  which  succeeded  the 
fall  of  the  western  Roman  empire,  monks  and  priests  became  the 
I'niNciPAL  PHYSICIANS,  and  a  little  medicine  was  taught  in  some  of  the 
monasteries ;  for  a  long  time  the  Benedictine  monks  of  JMonte  Cassino 


§  II.]  ESTHETIC   CULTUKE.  371 

erable  remnants  of  this  culture  are  said  to  have  ex- 
isted." 

§  II.    Esthetic  Culture,  or  Refinement. 

Esthetic  culture,  or  delicacy  of  perception,  expresses 
the  finer  culture  of  various  faculties,  so  that  no  little  dis- 
crimination becomes  requisite  in  its  use. 

Sometimes  it  expresses  a  culture  of,  or  chiefly  depend- 
ing upon,  physical  organs.  Thus  the  appreciation  of 
painting  and  music  must  depend  largely  on  qualities  — 
natural  or  acquired  —  of  the  eye  and  ear,  and  may  co- 
exist with  defective  mental  or  moral  development. 

Sometimes  it  denotes  mental  refinement.  To  this  be- 
longs the  ready  discernment,  or  appreciation,  of  lieautiful 
ideas,  language,  or  mental  traits ;  sensitiveness  to  any 
uncouth  or  coarse  word  or  act;  a  capacity  also  for  so 
using  language,  that  with,  or  even  M-ithout,  definite  mean- 
ing, it  shall  produce  a  grateful  impression,  either  by  its 

enjoyed  in  this  respect  an  extended  reputation.  From  the  ninth  to  the 
thirteenth  century  the  Jews,  acquiring  in  their  commerce  with  the  Sara- 
cens [?]  such  knowledge  as  was  possessed  by  the  latter,  became  cele- 
brated AS  PHYSiciAXS  ;  and  as  such,  despite  the  laws  which  forbade 
them  to  administer  remedies  to  Christians,  obtained  access  to  courts  and 
even  to  the  palace  of  the  Roman  pontiffs."  —  New  Ain.  Cyclopaedia, 
Vol.  11,  p.  346,  art.  Medicine.  It  would  seem  more  likely,  that  the 
Jews  derived  their  medical  knowledge  from  their  own  brethren  at  the 
East,  where  such  knowledge  was  common,  Thej'  and  the  Saracens  prob- 
ably obtained  their  knowledge  in  the  same  locality. 

^*  "If  we  comfiare,  at  the  era  of  the  Crusades,  the  Latins  of  Europe 
with  the  Greeks  and  Arabians,  their  respective  degrees  of  knowledge,  in- 
dustry, and  art,  our  rude  ancestors  must  be  content  with  the  third  rank 
in  the  scale  of  nations."  —  Gibbon,  ch.  61  ;  Vol.  7,  p.  379,  Philada. 
edit.  1816.  "  After  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  learned  Greeks  escaping 
from  the  captured  city  carried  a  knowledge  of  their  language  and  literature 
to  the  AVestern  world.  Previous  to  this  date  the  Greek  medical  writers  had 
been  read  only  through  the  medium  of  faulty  Arabic  translations  ;  but 
medical  men  now  availed  themselves  of  this  new  source  of  information, 
and  translations  of  Galen,  Hippocrates,  Dioscorides,  etc.,  wei'e  made  di- 
rectly from  the  Greek."  — New  Am.  Cyclopaedia,  Vol.  11,  p.  347, 
art.  Medicine. 


372  JUDAISM  AT  KOJIE.  [CH.  XIIL 

musical  flow,  its  cadence,  or  its  rhythm,  or  by  the  word- 
pictures  which  it  presents,  or  the  associations  which  it 
recalls.^° 

Sometimes  it  indicates  culture  of  moral  faculties  ;  deli- 
cate cognizance  of,  and  adaptation  to,  another's  state  of 
mind  or  feeling ;  habitual  readiness  to  perceive,  conjoined 
with  care  and  tact  to  avoid,  what  may  irritate  or  wound, 
what  may  arouse  prejudice,  quicken  wrong  desire,  dis- 
courage right  effort,  or  awaken  painful  recollections.  It 
includes  appreciation  of  correct  feeling,  and  skill  to  elicit 
or  commune  with  it ;  reverent  appreciation  of  sorrows  or 
of  affections  which  an  obtuse  nature  might  ridicule,  and 
wherewith  a  morally  undeveloped  one  might  trifle. 

Sometimes  two,  or  all  three  kinds  of  culture  may  be 
manifested  in  action  or  conversation,  and  may  conjointly 
be  intended  by  the  term  "  aesthetic."  Eefined  manners  are 
generally  the  result  of  both  mental  and  moral  culture. 
Again,  the  skill  wherewith  a  woman  selects  and  arranges 
the  furniture  and  adornments  of  her  house  may  imply  a 
perceptive  eye,  mental  refinement,  and,  in  more  ways  than 
one,  moral  culture.  If  undue  expense  be  avoided,  if  the 
pictures  on  the  walls  appeal  to  kindly  and  generous  emo- 
tions, they  may  indicate  a  cultivated  lieart,  or  a  developed 
moral  sense.  Clearness  requires  that  different  senses  of 
the  term  "  aesthetic  "  should  not  be  confounded. 

In  heathen  Greece  and  Rome  ?estheticism  concerned 
itself  chiefly  with  what  was  pliysical.  The  remains  of 
heathen  sculpture  evince  tliat  tlie  artist  strove  to  portray 
physical  grace  and  beauty,  or  muscular  development  and 
struggle,  rather  than  mental  emotion  or  moral  traits. 
Even  for  this  the  skill  seems  to  have  been  imported  from 
lands  which  had  been  cultivated  by  monotheistic  influ- 

1*  In  every  refined  community  taste  in  some  individuals  has  been  de- 
veloped at  the  expense  of  judgment.  A  well-delivered  discourse,  destitute 
of  anything  save  beauty  of  language,  illustration,  and  sentiment,  or  » 
book  written  in  the  same  vein,  produces  on  them  an  effect  similar  to 
what  they  would  experience  at  the  sight  of  a  beautiful  landscape,  or  in 
listening  to  favorite  nmsic.  Others  again,  while  requiring  sense,  need 
grace  of  diction  to  a  degree  that  detracts  from  earnestness. 


§11.]  ESTHETIC   CULTURE.  373 

ence.^^  Portrait-painting  must  have  been  cultivated  by 
monotheists,  for  Siracli  states  (38,  27)  tlmt  the  artist  shall 
by  sleepless  attention  render  his  work  perfect.  In  the 
field  of  sculpture  they,  during  the  age  of  heathen  suprem- 
acy, must  have  labored  only  to  a  limited  extent.  They 
would  have  found  little  sale  for  works,  save  of  a  class 
which  they  did  not  care  to  execute,  —  works  connected 
with  idolatry  or  heathen  customs.  The  beauties  of  nature 
found  recognition  almost  exclusively  among  monotheists.^'^ 

^^  The  defect  of  heathen  art  can  be  illusti-ated  by  comparing  it  witli 
some  modern  productions.  In  a  work  by  Rogers  called  "Mail  Day,"  a 
common  soldier  perplexes  his  brain  as  to  what  he  shall  write  home. 
Grace  and  beauty  are  subordinated  to  the  expression  of  a  mental  state. 
The  piece  appeals  to  cultivated  feeling. 

Heathen  efforts  must  have  been  rude  before  monotheistic  influence. 
Pliny  states  (Nat.  Hist.  34,  16,  2)  that  even  in  Etruria,  more  skilful  than 
Rome,  images  were  of  wood  until  after  the  conquest  of  Asia.  Had  high  skill 
been  indigenous  at  Athens,  there  is  no  reason  why  bronze  and  marble  statu- 
ary in  Italy  should  have  awaited  the  conquest  of  Asia,  If,  on  the  contrary, 
the  skill  in  Greece  were  imported,  we  can  comprehend  the  statement  in 
an  article  on  Phidias  (Smith,  Did.  of  B log.  3,  p.  243)  :  "A  contrast  ex- 
ists [as  regards  ancient  artists]  between  what  we  know  of  their  fame  and 
.  .  .  works,  and  what  we  can  learn  respecting  .  .  .  their  lives."  Their  early 
lives  were  unknown  to  the  people  among  whom  they  labored.  Compare  a 
quotation  from  Smith  in  note  10.  The  Jupiter  of  Phidias  was  a  patchwork 
concern  of  wood  or  stone  plastered  with  ivory  and  gold.  Even  as  regards 
sculpture  and  painting  their  condition  among  modern  Asiatics  fairly  sug- 
gests that  moral  culture,  if  not  a  prerequisite  in  the  artist,  must  exist  in 
the  community  by  whose  influence  he  is  formed. 

17  "  When  I  consider  thy  heavens  .  .  .  the  moon  and  stars  which  thou 
hast  ordained,  what  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him."  —  Ps.  8,  3,  4. 
"0  Lord  .  .  .  who  stretchest  out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  .  .  .  the 
earth  is  full  of  thy  riches."  —  Ps.  104,  l,  2,  24.  "  He  .  .  .  that  stretcheth 
out  the  heavens  as  a  canopy  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a  tent  to  dwell 
in." — Is.  40,  22.  "There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun  and  another  of  the 
moon  and  another  of  the  stars."  —  1  Cor.  15,  41.  "  I  will  be  as  the  dew 
to  Israel,  he  shall  bloom  as  the  lily.  .  .  .  His  beauty  shall  be  as  the 
olive-tree.  .  .  .  They  that  dwell  under  his  shadow  .  .  .  shall  revive  as 
the  com  and  gi'ow  as  the  vine." — Hoseal4,  5-7.  "Consider  the 
lilies  of  the  field.  ...  I  saj'  unto  you  that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was 
not  arrayed  like  one  of  these."  — Matt.  6,  2S,  29.     "The  heavens  dc 


374  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

The  species  of  {esthetic  culture  which  consisted  in 
word-pictures,  in  a  dexterous  use  of  beautiful  language, 
of  pleasing  illustration,  or  of  attractive  allegory,  had  its 
seat  at  Alexandria.  Its  remains  favor  the  supposition  that 
it  dwelt  mainly  among  Jews  and  monotheists.  Disciples 
of  this  school,  rather  than  of  heathenism,  attained  chief 
skill  in  its  use,  and  have  left  the  most  finished  specimens 
of  the  high  perfection  to  which  they  carried  it.  Clement 
and  Origen,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  and  first 
half  of  the  third  century,  Valentin  us  and  his  followers, 
at  and  before  the  middle  of  the  second,  have  no  compeers 
in  this  direction  among  heathens.  Pliilo,  still  earlier, 
shows  the  same  tendency  with  less  skill.  The  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  has  not  a  little  of  this  Alexandrine  trait. 

Moral  aistheticism  and  its  results  are  of  course  to  be 
found  chiefiy  in  communities  which  give  prominence  to 
moral  culture.  Eefinement  of  feeling,  respect  for  the 
afiections,  and  quickness  of  sympathy  are  seldom  matters 
of  historical  record.  What  we  find  concerning  them,  or 
implying  them,  must  be  sought  principally  in  the  writings 
of  monotheists,  or  of  those  who  have  been  infiuenced  by 
monotheism.  In  such  writings  we  find  a  prominence 
given  to  home  relations,  and  a  delicacy  of  feeling  incul- 
cated '^  which  is  absent,  or  nearly  so,  from  heathen  records. 

clare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  .  .  . 
The  sun  .  .  .  which  is  as  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of  liis  chamber,  and 
rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race."  — Ps.  19, 1,  4,  5.  "  The  \m\e 
firmament,  the  appearance  of  heaven,  a  magnificent  spectacle,  .  .  .  the 
glory  of  the  stars,  a  light-giving  ornamentation.  .  .  .  See  the  rainbow, 
intensely  beautiful  in  its  splendor,  and  bless  him  who  made  it.  ...  It 
bands  the  heaven  with  a  glorious  encirclement,  and  the  hands  of  the  Most 
High  have  stretched  it."  —  Sirach,  43,  l,  9,  11,  12. 

The  people  to  whom  such  language  was  addressed  must  have  been 
thought  competent  to  appreciate  it.  Heathen  poets  call  no  one's  atten- 
tion to  the  beauties  of  nature. 

1**  "The  Lord  has  elevated  the  father  above  his  children  and  established 
the  mother's  authority  over  her  sons.  ...  He  that  is  oliedient  unto  the 
Lord  will  be  a  comfort  to  his  mother.  .  .  .  Honor  thy  father  and  mother, 
both  in  word  and  deed.  .  .  .  My  son,  help  thy  father  in  his  age,  and 
grieve  him  not  as  long  as  he  liveth.     And  if  his  understanding  fail,  have 


§11.]  ^ESTHETIC    CULTURE.  375 

The  superior  reverence  for  woman  and  for  maternal  influ- 
ence ^^  which  prevailed  among  monotheists,  as  compared 

patience  with  him,  and  despise  him  not  when  thou  art  in  thy  full  strength. 
For  the  relieving  of  thy  father  shall  not  be  forgotten.  ...   He  that  for- 
saketh  his  father,  equals  a  blasphemer  ;  and  he  that  angereth  his  mother, 
is  cursed  of  God."  —  Sirach,  3,  .;-  k;. 
"  Hear,  0  my  son !  the  instruction  of  thy  father, 

And  neglect  not  the  teaching  of  thy  mother."  —  Prov.  l,8,Noyes's  tr. 

Compare  Prov.  6,  -20  ;  13,  l  ;  15,  20  ;  23, 22,  25. 

"  Better  is  a  dinner  of  herbs,  where  there  is  love, 
Than  a  fatted  ox  and  hatred  therewith."  —  Prov.  15, 17,  Noyes's  tr. 
"Anxiety  in  the  heart  of  a  man  boweth  it  down; 
But  a  kind  word  maketh  it  glad."  —  Prov.  12,  25,  Noyes's  tr. 
"  The  charm  of  a  man  is  his  kindness."  — Prov.  19,  22,  Noyes'a  tr. 
"  A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath."  —  Prov.  15, 1. 
The  meaning  of  the  following  can  be  best  conveyed  by  paraphrasing 

it  :  — 

"A  rightly  worded  answer 
Equals  an  affectionate  kiss."  —  Prov.  24,  26. 
"  Do  not  accompany  your  kind  offices  with  censure,  ...  a  word  is 
[sometimes]  better  than  a  gift,   .  .  .  both  will  be  found  in  a  kindly  dis- 
posed man. "  — Sirach,  18,  15-17. 

19  "Houses  and  riches  are  an  inheritance  from  fathers; 

But  a  prudent  wife  is  from  the  Lord."  —  Prov,  19, 14,  Noyes's  tr. 
"  He  that  findeth  a  wife  findeth  a  blessing. 
And  obtaineth  [a]  favor  from  the  Lord."  —  Prov.  18,  22,  Noyes,  tr. 
"  Her  children  rise  up  and  extol  her; 
Her  husband,  and  praiseth  her."  —  Prov.  31,  28,  Noyes's  tr. 

*'  Do  not  [through  indifference]  miss  a  wise  and  good  wife,  for  she  is  a 
boon  beyond  gold."  —  Sirach,  7,  19.  Compare  the  utterance  of  Valen- 
tinus  (Ch.  XI .  note  9)  that  a  man  is  degenerate  who  has  passed  through 
life  without  loving  a  woman. 

"  Blessed  is  the  husband  of  a  good  wife.  ...  As  the  rising  sun  in  the 
heavens,  so  is  the  beauty  of  a  good  wife  in  the  world  of  her  household. 
...  As  a  light  in  a  consecrated  candlestick,  so  is  the  beauty  of  her  face 
in  ripe  age."  —  Sirach,  26,  ],  IG,  17. 

"Ye  husbands,  dwell  with  .  .  .  giving  honor  to  your  wives,  as  co- 
heirs to  the  favor  of  [a  future]  life." — 1  Pet.  3,  7.  "  Exhort  ...  the  elder 
women  as  mothers,  the  younger  as  sisters."  — 1  Tim.  5,  1,  2.  Compare 
the  preceding  note. 


376  JUDAISM    AT   EOME.  [CH.  XIII. 

with  heathens,  is  sure  evidence,  that  in  its  company  ex- 
isted a  higher  refinement  than  elsewhere  of  the  feelings 
and  affections.  Dio  Chrysostom,  though  nominally  a 
heathen,  grew  up  surrounded  by  monotheism.  Its  refin- 
ino-  influence  is  manifest  in  his  writings. 


§  III.    Industrial  Culture. 

The  prosperity  of  any  community  and  the  welfare 
of  its  individual  members  depend  largely  on  habits  of 
industry.  Where  these  are  wanting,  vice  and  discon- 
tent are  sure  to  enter.  An  unoccupied  mind  craves 
excitement  and  can  only  be  satiated  by  injury,  or  ruin, 
to  itself. 

The  Indians  of  America  illustrate  this.  In  those  sec- 
tions of  the  continent  where  men  were  accustomed  to  labor, 
namely,  in  South  America,  Central  America,  Mexico,  and 
to  a  slighter  degree  in  the  southern  half  of  the  United 
States,  large  bodies  of  the  aborigines  exist.  In  the  north- 
ern portion  of  the  United  States,  where  labor  disgraced  a 
man,2°  their  race  has  almost  passed  away.    They  acquired 

"^^  "The  life  of  an  Indian  when  at  home  in  his  village  is  a  life  of  indo- 
lence and  annisenient.  To  the  woman  is  consigned  the  labors  of  the 
household  and  the  field  ;  she  arranges  the  lodge  ;  brings  wood  for  the 
fire  ;  cooks  ;  jerks  venison  and  buffalo  meat ;  dresses  the  skins  of  the  ani- 
mals killed  in  the  chase  ;  cultivates  the  little  patch  of  maize,  i3umi)kins, 
and  pulse  which  furnishes  a  great  part  of  their  provisions.  ...  As  to 
the  Indian  women,  .  .  .  they  wonld  despise  their  husbands  could  they 
stoop  to  any  menial  office,  and  would  think  it  conveyed  an  imputation 
upon  their  own  conduct.  It  is  the  worst  insult  one  virago  can  cast  upon 
another  in  a  moment  of  altercation.  '  Infamous  woman  !  .  .  .  I  have 
seen  your  husband  carrying  wood  into  his  lodge  to  make  the  fire.  Where 
was  his  squaw  that  he  should  be  obliged  to  make  a  woman  of  himself  ]'  " 
—  W.  Irving,  Astoria  (Works,  Vol.  8),  pp.  206,  207.  "Mr.  May  made 
an  address  to  an  assembly  of  Onondaga  Indians,  including  several  chiefs. 
In  the  plainest  terms  he  told  them  that,  if  they  expected  or  desired  to 
prosper,  they  must  overcome  their  contempt  for  hard  work,  and  devote 
themselves  to  regular  and  constant  industry.  As  soon  as  he  ended  and 
'paused  for  a  reply,'  an  old  chief  arose,  with  an  expressive  grunt  of  dis- 
gust, and  .stalked  off  in  silent  dignity.     He  was  followed  by  all  the  other 


§ni.]  INDUSXrJAL   CULTURE.  377 

the  vices  without  the  virtues  of  white  men,  and,  within 
the  lifetime  of  a  man,  have  nearly  perished  from  the 
width  of  a  continent.^^ 

Again,  among  their  white  successors,  in  the  northern, 
or  non-slaveliolding  portion  of  the  United  States,  industry 
has  been  reputable.  In  the  southern  portion  slavery, 
while  it  existed,  cast  a  stigma  on  labor.  The  migrating 
myriads  of  Europe  have  poured  in  ceaseless  streams  over 
the  northern  section  of  our  country,  while  only  excep- 
tional individuals  have  sought  the  south.  That  a  country 
may  prosper,  industry  must  be  esteemed. 

The  bearing  of  industrious  habits  upon  individual 
happiness  attracts  too  little  notice.  The  man  or  woman 
whose  time  is  adequately  occupied,  acquires  an  etticiency, 
and,  if  the  occupation  be  sufticiently  diversified,  a  self- 
dependence,  which  idleness  cannot  give.  The  mind  is 
protected  also  against  hankering  for  excitement,  physical 
or  social,  and  is  less  a  prey  therefore  to  folly  and  vice. 
In  a  single  respect  this  latter  remark  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  condition  of  modern  Jews.  Their  average  morality 
is  not  above  that  of  Christians ;  yet  their  freedom  from 
physical  vices  is  much  greater.  A  Jewish  drunkard  or 
pauper  is,  in  our  own  country,  rarely  met ;  most  probably 
because  a  Jewish  idler  is  seldom  seen,  and  if  common 
report  can  be  trusted,  the  houses  of  shame  find  few  re- 
cruits among  Jewish  women. 

Aside,  liowever,  from  protection  against  vice,  habits  of 
industry  ser\-e  to  develop  and  strengthen  the  character, 
and,  if  the  industry  be  physical  without  being  excessive, 

hearers,  until  the  offending  speaker  was  left  entirely  alone."  ^  Memoir 
of  S.  J.  May,  pp.  231,  232. 

^^  Eighty  years  ago  there  stood  at  one  end  of  the  street  on  which  the 
author  lives  a  stockade  fort  enclosing  a  blockhouse  and  a  private  dwelling. 
In  or  near  it  were  (August  10,  1794)  fifteen  white  men,  some  of  them 
with  families.  They  constituted  the  white  population  of  the  county,  and 
■were  gathered  for  safety  near  the  fort,  because  the  Indians  had  sent  notice 
that  they  intended  to  clean  them  out.  On  that  day  two  boys  whose 
father  had  just  been  fired  upon  were  hurried  into  the  fort.  They  are  3'et 
(a.  d.  1874)  enjoying  a  vigorous  old  age,  but  the  Indians,  from  the  Alle- 
ghanies  to  the  Pacific,  are  in  this  latitude  almost  extinct. 


378  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

to  give  such  tone  and  buoyancy  to  the  human  frame  tliat, 
in  the  absence,  and  sometimes  even  in  spite,  of  constitu- 
tional impediment,  the  spirits  become  joyous,  the  sympa- 
thies quick,  the  energies  untiring,  and  the  capacity  both 
of  enjoyment  and  usefuhiess  great.  Overwork,  of  course, 
defeats  all  this,  and  creates  in  some  a  longing  for  physical 
stimulus.  JNIodern  occupations,  even  when  physical,  tax 
the  mind  more  than  in  former  times. 

The  question  of  industrial  education  for  the  young 
demands  attention  vastly  beyond  wliat  it  has  received. 
The  parent  who  wilfully,  or  through  indifference,  neglects 
to  bring  up  a  child  in  habits  of  industry  and  to  familiarize 
it  with  waiting  on  itself  and  making  itself  useful,  is  com- 
mitting a  crime  against  the  child's  future  welfare.  Many 
difficulties  stand  at  present  in  the  way,  some  of  which 
require  combined  effort  for  their  removal,^^  while  others 
merely  claim  from  the  parent  good  sense,  fidelity,  and  an 
appreciation  of  the  object  to  be  attained.^^     Much  could 

22  The  number  of  hours  and  amount  of  studies  in  public  schools  render 
it  a  hardship  towards  most  children  to  superadd  home  occupations.  As 
a  prerequisite  to  remedying  tliis,  school  studies,  especially  for  children 
under  twelve  years,  or  thereabouts,  should  be  abbreviated.  Habits  of 
personal  industry  and  self-help  are  seriously  important,  and  should  not 
be  unduly  sacrificed  even  to  attainments  at  school. 

The  absence  of  many  fathers  from  home  during  a  large  part  of  each 
day  interferes  not  only  with  their  facilities  for  teaching  industi-y  to  their 
children,  but  with  opportunity  for  studying  their  characters,  keeping  in 
sympathy  with,  and  rightly  directing  them.  Mitigation  for  this  evil 
might  be  devised.  Earnest  attention  should  be  called  to  it.  "While  it 
exists,  it  devolves  an  additional  duty  on  the  mother. 

Improved  machinery  accomplishes  much  work  formerly  intrusted  to 
juvenile  hands.  Tiiought  and  public  effort  should  be  devoted  to  the 
subject,  that  this  end  not  in  juvenile  idleness. 

Absence  of  refinement  in  the  laboring  classes,  especially  in  those  from 
Europe,  causes  aversion  to  such  occupations  as  might  seemingly  put  us 
on  a  par  with  coarseness.  The  only  remedy  is  to  dill'use  refinement 
among  the  working  classes. 

23  A  boy,  though  exposed  by  idleness  to  a  greater  variety  of  tempta- 
tions than  his  sister,  has  one  great  advantage  over  her.  If  Ik;  marries, 
he  can,  as  clerk  or  junior  partner,  learn  some  occupation  before  endeavor- 


§  III.]  INDUSTMAL   CULTLTRE.  379 

be  effected  by  a  cultivation  of  refinement  in  the  laboring 
classes,  thus  rendering  associations  with  labor  more  pleas- 
ant. In  our  own  country  the  laboring  classes,  though 
misled  sometimes  by  the  presentation  of  folly  as  wisdom, 
and  of  antagonism  to  employers  as  independence,  are  at- 
taining culture.  The  impediments  are  in  many  localities 
light  and  diminishing.  In  continental  Europe,  however, 
the  impediments  are  fearful,  and  among  these  is  the  mag- 

ing  to  superintend  it.  The  sister,  if  married,  becomes  the  head  of  a 
household,  and  needs  to  superintend  that  of  which  she  is  perhaps  totally- 
ignorant.  Incompetent  superintendence  makes  the  duty  of  domestics  more 
trying,  opening  a  door  to  friction  and  discontent.  The  relation  between 
her  and  her  feminine  aids,  instead  of  giving  rise  to  lifelong  endear- 
ments and  interest  in  each  other's  welfare,  becomes  an  injury  to  charac- 
ter, causing  or  aggravating  distaste  for  home  superintendence  on  the 
one  side,  and  for  domestic  service  on  the  other.  Familiarity  in  early  life 
with  household  duties,  under  guidance  of  parents  as  to  the  best  method 
of  dealing  with  various  dispositions,  might  have  given  a  different  aspect 
to  these  relations,  and,  if  general  throughout  society,  might  make  domes- 
tic service  attractive  to  many  who  now  shun  it,  though  suffering  for  lack 
of  employment. 

Europe  suffers,  though  in  a  modified  form,  equally  with  America  from 
this  class  of  difficulties.  More  than  thirty  years  ago,  an  old  philan- 
thropist in  continental  Europe  asked  me  to  send  him  as  a  corrective 
half  a  dozen  copies  of  Miss  Sedgwick's  "  Live  and  Let  Live,"  remark- 
ing that  half  the  plagues  of  life  originated  in  miscomprehension  between 
the  lady  of  the  house  and  her  domestics.-  Comments  on  the  subject 
at  Frankfort,  Geneva,  and  elsewhere,  evinced  that  tlie  evil  was  wide- 
spread. 

The  cliarge  which  a  judge  was  uttering  from  liis  judicial  bench  in  Eng- 
land when  arrested  by  death,  claims  attention  over  too  wide  a  portion  of 
the  earth.  "  Even  to  our  servants  we  think  perhaps  we  fulfil  our  duty 
when  we  perform  our  contract  with  them, — when  we  pay  them  their 
wages,  and  treat  them  with  the  civility  consistent  with  our  habits  and 
feelings,  —  when  we  curb  our  temper  aiid  use  no  violent  expressions  to- 
wards them.  But  how  painful  is  the  thought  that  there  are  men  and 
women  growing  up  around  us,  ministering  to  our  comfort  and  necessities, 
continually  inmates  of  our  dwellings,  with  whose  affections  and  nature  we 
are  as  much  unacijuaintcd,  as  if  they  were  the  inhabitants  of  some  other 
sphere."  — T.  N.  Talfourd,  quoted  in  the  Christian  Register,  Boston, 
April  15,  1854. 


380  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

nitude  of  standing  armies,^  to  the  abatement  of  which 
philantln^opy  should  devote  every  energy. ^^ 

The  industr}'  of  a  country  may  be  aided  or  impeded  by 
wise  or  unwise  customs  or  legislation,  and  by  the  facility 
or  difficulty  of  obtaining  family  homes.^^     The  A-ariety  of 

2*  The  military  establishments  of  eontinental  Eurojie  absorb  young 
men  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  thus  dev(jlving  accumulated  labor  on  the 
infirm,  the  old,  and  the  women.  Overwork  bars  self-culture.  E.xhaus- 
tion  craves  and  finds  mere  animal  recreation.  Marriage  is  postponed  to 
military  service.  Laboring  women,  without  avenue  to  improved  social 
standing,  lack  a  chief  incitement  to  self-respect.  Young  men  removed 
from  home-influence,  and  from  occupations  which  might  interest  them, 
are  aggregated  into  masses,  a  more  easy  prey  to  vice.  In  the  larger  cities 
the  proportion  of  illegitimate  births  becomes  frightful. 

25  As  a  step  towards  the  desired  end,  two  or  three  among  even  the 
minor  powers  in  Europe  might  agree  upon  adding  to  their  own  rules  of 
intercourse,  and  advocating  for  insertion  into  the  laws  of  nations  some 
such  clause  as  the  following  :  — 

No  nation  unattacked  has  a  right  to  make  war,  nor  any  community  to 
subvert  its  own  government  luj  violence,  without  publishing  a  distinct 
statement  of  not  merely  good,  but  sufficient  reasons  for  its  action. 

Such  a  clause  would  not  at  first  prevent,  but  merely  impede,  wars,  and 
diminish  their  frequency.  Each  additional  nation  which  subscribed  the 
code,  each  step  forward  by  public  opinion,  would  place  bellicose  govern- 
ments more  at  disadvantage.  The  only  effectual  remedy,  however,  must 
be  a  capacity  for  self-government  in  the  people,  and  a  control  by  them  — 
the  chief  sufferers  in  war  —  over  international  disputes. 

26  A  mechanic,  or  laboring  man,  owner  of  a  home,  has  a  strong  motive 
for  earning  and  saving,  that  he  may  add  to  its  comfort  or  beauty.  A 
friend  of  the  author  was  told  by  prominent  factory-owners  in  England, 
that  four  days  weekly  was  about  as  much  as  they  could  get  out  of  their 
operatives.  If  so,  inability  of  the  working  classes  to  acquire  homes  is 
])robably  a  silent  discouragement  to  effort,  and  therewith,  to  self-respect. 
The  real  estate  of  England  is  in  few  hands.  Dismemberment,  for  sale, 
of  beautiful  patrimonies,  interwoven  with  cherished  family  associations, 
might  be  a  severe  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  her  landholders.  But  if  interest 
in  the  culture  and  elevation  of  their  fellow-men  should  prompt  them  to 
it,  a  nobler  example  could  hardly  be  given  of  Christian  thoughtfulness 
for  human  welfare.  To  their  children  and  descendants  the  companion- 
ship of  cultured  fellow-citizens  would  be  a  richer  heritage  than  undi- 
minished acres. 


§111.]  INDUSTRIAL   CULTURE.  381 

influences  which  affect  it  should  cause  caution  in  deter- 
mining the  respective  weight  of  each.  Yet  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  industry  was  held  in  more  respect  by 
monotheism,  and  therefore  by  the  communities  which  it 
influenced,  than  by  heathenism.^"^"  The  countries  where 
monotheism  had  spread  were  the  workshops  of  the  Roman 
empire.  In  monotheistic  writings  a  man's  occupation  is 
often  appended  to  his  name.^"  Paul,  a  scholar,  worked  at 
tent-making.^'"  Josephus  appeals  to  heathen  cognizance 
of  the  fact,  that  mechanical  occupations  were  largely  in 
Jewish  hands.28  Philo  mentions  their  workshops  at 
Alexandria.29  The  industrial  prosperity  of  the  countries 
where  tliey  settled  is  attested  by  patrician  desire  of  obtain- 
ing office  there.3"  Cicero,  as  already  quoted  on  p.  30,  tes- 
tifles  that  Asia  Minor  was  the  portion  of  the  republic 
where  "  reason  and  diligence  effect  most."  Tacitus  bears 
witness  to  the  peacefulness  and  wealth  of  Syria.^^  The 
Jews  are  mentioned  by  Dio  Cassius  as  fabricators  of  arms 
for  tlie  Ptomans.22  Centuries  after  the  Christian  era  we 
find  adopted  in  Europe  an  industrial  agency  invented  in 
Asia  Minor,  namely,  windmills.^^ 

28*  See  in  Ch.  VIII.  at  close  of  note  127,  Patrician  contempt  for  work- 
men. 

27  Mention  is  made  of  Joseph  "  the  carpenter  "  (Matt  13, 55)  ;  "Simon 
the  tanner"  (Act3  9,  48;  10,  •!,  3-2);  "Alexander  the  coppersmith" 
(2  Tim.  4,  14)  ;  "Aquila  and  Priscilla,  tent-makers"  (Acts  18,  2,  3). 

2' "  Acts  18,  3.  "The  Talmud  makes  it  the  duty  of  scholars  to  learn 
some  mechanical  art."  New  Am.  Cyclopeed.  14,  p.  847,  col.  1,  art. 
Spinoza. 

28  See  in  Ch.  IV.  note  6,  Josephus,  Against  Apion,  2,  39  {al.  40). 

29  Heathens  "broke  open  even  the  workshops  of  the  Jews."  —  Philo, 
Against  Flaccus,  8,  Bohn's  trans. 

"'^  Piulers  for  Syria  and  Egypt  were  appointed,  not  by  the  Senate,  but 
by  the  emperors.  The  Senate  supplied  annually  a  governor  to  a  large 
division  of  Asia  Minor.  The  wealth,  and  therefore  the  industry,  of  this 
province  is  well  attested  by  the  action  of  the  Senate,  which  long  treated 
it  as  the  prize  of  consular  senators  (Tacitus,  An.  3,  7l),  according  to  the 
order  in  which  they  had  been  consuls. 

^'  See  citation  and  references  in  note  8. 

82  See  in  Ch.  X.  the  first  paragraph  of  note  133. 

83  See  Gibbon,  ch.  61,  note  65,  Vol.  7,  p.  379,  Philada.  edit.  1816. 


382  JUDAISM   AT   ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 


§  IV.    Grcch  Culture  a  Result  of  Monotheism. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made,  pp.  367-  371,  to  Greek 
culture  as  a  result  of  monotheistic  influence.  A  separate 
section  is  here  devoted  to  the  subject,  in  hope  of  thereby 
attracting  to  it  a  more  minute  scrutiny  than  the  author 
can  give. 

The  Greek  population  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  North 
Egypt  attained  a  scientific  and  practical  knowledge  com- 
bined with  general  culture  unknown  among  their  Gentile 
cotemporaries.  The  liomans  were  dependent  on  the 
Greeks  even  for  their  cooks.^  Deferring  to  a  note  the 
evidence  that  science  had  not  taken  root  outside  of  these 
borders,*^  the  question  arises  as  to  its  cause  within  them. 
Commerce  was  unlikely  to  do  for  Asia  Minor  or  Syria 
more  than  for  Greece.  A  mere  blending  of  races  would 
not  develop  intelligence  in  Asia  rather  than  in  Italy. 
There  are  but  two  causes  for  this  culture  which  seem 
probable. 

Firstly,  the  Jews  outside  of  Palestine  must  already, 
some  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  have  been  not 
only  educated,^''  but  scientific,  for  more  than  one  eminent 
heathen,  regards  them  as  descendants  from,  or  on  a  par 
with,  philosophers,^"  and  their  own  writings  imjdy  the  ex- 


^*  See  close  of  extract  from  Lyell  in  Ch.  V.  note  52. 

^  See  Aiipendix,  Note  M. 

80  The  Wisdom  of  Sirach,  compiled  200  or  300  B.  c,  contains  the 
biisiness  diiectiuii  (42,  7) :  "  Let  delivery  to,  and  receipt  from,  every  one 
be  iu  writing."  "Writing  must  then  liave  been  common.  An  earlier 
wiiter  says  :  "Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end."  — Ecc.  12,  12. 

^  "Clearchus,  who  was  the  scholar  of  Aristotle,  and  inferior  to  no 
one  of  the  Pt>iipatetics  whomsoever,  in  his  first  book,  Concerning  Sleep, 
.says,  that  '  Aristotle,  his  master,  related  what  follows  of  a  Jew.  .  .  . 
This  man  .  .  .  was  by  birth  a  Jew,  and  came  from  Ccelesyria ;  these 
Jews  are  derived  from  the  Indian  philosophers.  Philosophers,  it  is  .said, 
are  called  by  the  Indians  Calani,  and  by  the  Syrians  Judcci,  and  took 
their  names  from  the  country  they  inhabit,  which  is  called  Juclxca.  .  .  . 
Now,  this  man,  when  he  was  hospitably  treated  by  a  great  many,  came 
down  from  tlie  upper  country  to  the  places  near  to  the  sea,  and  became 


§  IV.]  GREEK   CULTURE.  383 

istence  among  them  of  attention  to  science.^^  The  Jews 
had  spread  especially  in  the  above-mentioned  countries, 

a  Grecian,  not  only  in  his  language,  but  in  his  soul  also ;  insomuch  tha'i 
when  we  ourselves  happened  to  be  in  Asia  about  the  same  places  whither 
he  came,  he  conversed  with  us,  and  with  other  philosophical  persons,  and 
made  a  trial  of  our  skill  in  philosophy ;  and  as  he  had  lived  with  many 
learned  men  he  communicated  to  us  more  information  than  he  received 
from  us.'  "  —  Josephus,  Against  Ajnon,  1,  22,  Winston's  trans,  altered. 
Perhaps  the  conclusion  should  be  translated,  "he  communicated  the 
more  readily  of  what  he  possessed."  The  narrative  cannot  be  any  fabri- 
cation by  a  Jew,  for  in  that  case  Jewish  learning  would  not  have  been 
attributed  to  a  heathen  source.  Clement  of  Alexandria  {Strovi.  1, 
§  70;  Potter,  p.  358)  quotes  Clearchus  as  professing  "acquaintaxce 
WITH  [cognizance  of?]  some  Jew  who  had  associated  with  Aristotle." 

Clement  also  quotes  another  writer  as  follows :  "  Megasthenes,  the 
historian  [about  B.  c.  300],  .  .  .  writes  thus  in  his  third  book  of  India 
Affairs:  'All  matters  of  natural  science  spoken  of  among  the  ancients 
[of  our  nation]  are  also  taught  by  philosophers  outside  of  Greece ;  namelj', 
among  the  Hindoos  by  the  Brahmins,  and  in  Syria  by  those  called  Jews.'  " 
—  Strom.  1,  §  72  (Potter,  p.  360), 

^  "Honor  a  physician  with  the  honor  due  unto  him,  .  .  .  for  the 
Lord  hath  created  him.  For  of  the  Most  High  cometh  healing.  .  .  . 
The  skill  of  the  physician  shall  lift  up  his  head ;  and  in  the  sight  of 
great  men  he  shall  be  in  admiration.  The  Lord  hath  created  medicines 
out  of  the  earth ;  and  he  that  is  wise  will  not  abhor  them.  .  .  .  With 
such  doth  he  heal  [men]  and  taketh  away  their  pains.  Of  such  doth  the 
apothecary  make  a  confection.  .  .  .  My  son,  in  thy  sickness,  .  .  .  give 
place  to  the  physician,  for  the  Lord  hath  created  him :  let  him  not  go 
from  thee,  for  thou  hast  need  of  him.  There  is  a  time  when  in  their 
hands  there  is  good  success.  For  they  shall  also  pray  unto  the  Lord,  that 
he  would  prosper  that  which  they  give."  — Sirach,  38,  1-14.  The 
perception  (implied  Gen.  2,  21)  of  fewer  ribs  by  one  in  man  than  in  some 
domestic  animals  indicates  anatomical  observation. 

The  Wisdom  of  Solomon  is  a  work  of  uncertain  date,  written  probably 
from  one  to  three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  Its  author,  speak- 
ing in  the  name  of  Solomon,  says,  God  "gave  me  reliable  knowledge 
concerning  the  universe,  to  know  the  constitution  of  the  world  and 
operation  of  its  elements ;  the  beginning,  end,  and  middle  of  years ;  the 
changes  [of  the  sun's  course  at  each]  of  the  tropics,  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  seasons ;  the  cycles  of  years  and  the  position  of  stars ;  the  peculiari- 
ties of  animals  and  the  [various]  dispositions  of  wild  beasts  ;  the  violence 


384  JUDAISM  AT  ROME.  [CH.  XIII. 

and  may  have  imparted  more  or  less  scientific  knowledge 
to  their  Greek  fellow-citizens. 

Secondly,  Jews  believed  in  a  Supreme  Being  who  took 
interest  in  human  morality.  Many  Greeks  accepted 
the  belief.^^  It  strengthened  conscience  and  encouraged 
moral  aims,  thereby  developing  observation  and  reflection. 
These  two  qualities  became  the  source  of  an  independent 
growth. 

There  is  much  in  modern  which  may  illustrate  ancient 
history.  Papal  Eome  has  been  as  poor  an  exponent  of 
Christian  culture  as  was  Jerusalem  of  Jewish.  Chiim, 
with  no  word  in  its  vocabulary  for  conscience,  or  moral 
sense,^°  may  throw  light  on  the  non-progressive  condition 
of  Greece,  Rome,  and  other  nations  which  monotheism 
had  not  visited,  or  from  which  it  was  driven  out. 

of  winds  and  the  controversies  of  mortals;  the  varieties  of  plants  and 
the  [diverse]  efficacy  of  roots."  —  Wisdom  of  Sol.  7,  17-20. 

33  In  a  Prologue  to  the  Wisdom  of  Sirach,  its  translator  states  as 
an  object  of  his  labor,  "to  issue  the  book  even  to  those  of  the  foreign 
household  [that  is,  to  Gentiles]  who  wish  to  study  and  who  are  already 
prepared  morally,  rd  ijdr],  to  live  according  to  the  Law,"  and  gives  as  a 
motive  which  had  actuated  his  grandfather,  the  need  "that  students 
should,  in  their  teaching  and  writing,  be  useful  to  those  outside." 
Cp.  Cc.  III.,  IV.,  and  Note  B,  footnotes  43,  44.  Justin  evidently  (Dial. 
go,  V2i)  deemed  these  converts  to  Judaism  a  large  class. 

*"  A  friend,  the  president  of  Allegheny  College  in  this  place,  has,  at 
the  author's  request,  reduced  the  following  statement  to  wi'iting:  "In 
the  year  1850  I  visited  the  city  of  Shanghai,  China,  and  had  an  inter- 
view with  Rev.  W.  H.  Medhurst,  D.  D.,  who  told  me  that  he  had  been 
studying  the  Chinese  language  for  thirty  years,  and  had  found  no  word  in 
that  language  which  was  a  synonyme  of  our  English  word  '  conscience,'  or 
moral  sense."  —  Geo.  Loomis.  Cp.  p.  576,  n.  53;  see  also,  on  p.  29, 
the  absence  from  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  prior  to  monotheistic  influ- 
ence, of  any  term  for  "conscience."  The  question  would  be  interesting, 
whether  any  heathen  language,  utterly  devoid  of  monotheistic  influence, 
have  such  a  term.  A  difficulty  confronting  inquirers  would  be  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  extent  of  former  monotheistic  influence,  especially  in 
Asia,  and  as  to  the  date  of  any  ancient  literature.  On  this  latter  point 
an  error  of  centuries,  in  the  commonly  aflSxed  dates,  would,  in  the  ab- 
sence or  unreliability  of  chronological  data,  be  possible. 


§  IV.]  GEEEK   CULTURE.  385 

Particular  localities  may  hold  forth  inducements  to 
lovers  of  money  or  pleasure,  whereof  only  the  intelligent 
can  avail  themselves,  and  in  such  localities  intelligence 
and  deficiency  of  moral  sense  may  be  common  associates  ; 
even  as  ignorance  and  vice  hold  almost  exclusive  sway  in 
others.  Seasons  of  speculation  may  present  temptation 
only  to  the  intelligent;  and  among  them  only  will  the 
moral  failures  occasioned  by  it  be  found.  Yet,  if  the 
author's  observation  have  not  deceived  him,  the  average 
morality  of  intelligent  individuals  is  decidedly  above 
that  of  the  ignorant.  On  this  point  the  testimony  which 
he  places  below  *^  has  much  weight  in  his  own  mind. 
Morality  and  general  intelligence  in  every  nation  bear 
a  tolerably  fixed  ratio  to  each  other.  By  intelligence 
must  not,  however,  be  understood  merely  the  prevalence 
of  school  education.  In  Northern  Germany,  whose  school 
system  is  reputed  inferior  to  none,  intelligence  and  men- 
tal activity  are  much  less  common  among  the  masses  and 


*i  ]\Iy  father  commiiTiicated  to  me,  as  the  result  of  his  experience,  that 
the  dispositimi  to  dishonesty  is  most  common  among  the  unintelligent, 
though  they  set  more  bunglingly  about  it. 

He  had  large  opportunity  of  observation,  for,  as  agent  and  as  proprie- 
tor, he  superintended  during  half  a  century  (1805 -1854)  landed  property 
in  four  different  counties.  There  were  times  of  active  purchase,  when 
two  thousand  contracts  on  file  implied  an  equal  number  of  settlers  who 
had  not  yet  paid  for  their  lands.  A  visitor  from  continental  Europe  said, 
that  in  the  Land  Office  he  could  see  more  of  human  nature  in  one  day 
than  in  his  father's  counting-house  during  a  year. 

My  father's  judgment  was  attested  by  his  reducing  disorder  to  order, 
and  by  success  in  meeting  the  many  difficulties  incident  to  his  position. 
Long-continued  indulgence  was  necessary  towards  the  less  fortunate ; 
steady,  though  gentle,  pressure  towards  the  idle,  who  without  it  would 
have  failed  to  acquire  homes.  Judicious  inquiiy,  patient  thoiight,  and 
discriminating  judgment  were  requisite  in  distinguishing  between  the 
two  classes  and  the  modifications  of  them. 

Another  quality,  important  to  his  work  though  not  to  the  value  of  his 
opinion,  was  brought  to  my  notice  by  a  white-headed  old  settler,  who,  on 
hearing  of  his  death,  called  upon  me  and  remarked,  that  he  "  never  knew 
any  one  who  had  such  a  knack  of  encouraging  a  fellow." 

17  Y 


386  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  XIII. 

even  in  the  middle  classes,^^  than  throucfhout  the  northern 
portion  of  the  United  States.*^ 

A  companionship,  in  most  cases,  of  morality  with  in- 
telligence implies  some  relationship  between  them.  On 
the  nature  of  this  relationship  the  author  has  already,  in 
the  first  section  of  this  chapter,  given  his  views.  The  rise 
of  Greek  culture,  dating  from  the  advent  of  monotheism, 
favors  strongly  the  supposition,  that  a  sense  of  moral  re- 
sponsibility stimulates  intelligence,  and  that  belief  in  an 
all-seeing  Moral  lluler  encourages  himian  efforts.  The 
non-progressive  character  of  China,  in  spite  of  its  univer- 
sal school  education,**  corroborates  the  supposition.  So 
do  the  teachings  of  modern  history,  as  recalled  by  the 
author.     On  this  point,  however,  modern  history  needs  a 

*^  During  a  sojourn  in  Germany  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  the  author 
met  five  different  individuals,  of  the  middle  class,  who  supposed  that 
Americans  were  all  black.  The  fifth  instance  occurred  at  the  table  of  a 
friend  who  had  discredited  his  previous  experience,  ascribing  it  to  lack 
of  discrimination  on  his  part  between  the  uneducated  and  those  from 
whom  knowledge  might  be  expected.  The  absence  of  general  intelligence 
is  partly,  though  not  wholly,  due  to  impediments  (see  note  7)  which  dis- 
courage private  effort.  School  education  is  but  an  instrument  for  self- 
development.  If,  after  receiving  it,  the  hands  of  a  community  be  so  tied 
as  to  prevent  its  use,  the  instrument  becomes  of  no  avail. 

*3  The  best  portions  of  the  United  States  have  in  many  ways  great 
room  for  improvement ;  yet  the  extent  to  which  they  safely  dispense  with 
police  protection,  strikingly  illustrates  one  feature  of  their  moral  progress. 
In  A.  D.  1865  a  million  soldiers,  trained  on  the  battle-field,  were  disbanded 
in  the  Northern  States  without  police  precaution  and  without  causing  the 
slightest  apprehension  to  man,  woman,  or  child. 

"  "In  no  country  of  the  world  is  education  so  general  as  in  China. 
Though  the  government  fosters  only  the  higher  branches  by  .supporting 
colleges  {hio-Jcung)  in  the  large  cities  and  provincial  capitals,  wliile  tlie 
primary  schools  are  sustained  only  by  municipalities  or  individuals,  the 
knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  is  all  but  universal.  Even 
the  lowest  peasant  or  mechanic  knows  how  to  keep  his  account-books. 
.  .  .  Female  education  is  more  limited  than  that  of  men,  but  literary 
attainments  are  considered  creditable  to  a  woman,  and  the  number  of 
authoresses  is  by  no  means  small.  Printed  books  are  cheaper  in  China 
than  elsewhere,  notwithstanding  the  clumsiness  of  the  printing  appara- 
tus."—  New  Amer.  Cyclopaedia,  Vol.  5,  p.  105,  art.  Cliina. 


§  v.]  THE  DARK  AGES.  387 

scrutiny  more  discriminating,  thorough,  and  dispassionate 
than  any  to  which  it  has  yet  been  subjected. 

IMankind  find  themselves  on  a  comparative  sandspeck 
floating  amidst  what  seems  a  limitless  universe.  Their 
study  of  physical  law  extends  to  distances  which  battle 
comprehension.  Their  study  of  moral  law  has  hitlierto 
been  confined  to  the  little  globe  which  they  inhabit,  and 
even  its  lessons  have  been  very  imperfectly  learned.  Yet 
most  minds  would  be  aided  far  more  by  a  perception  of 
moral  purpose  than  of  physical  law,  in  believing  that  a 
Moral  Kuler  sways  the  universe.  The  amount  of  hope, 
happiness,  and  improvement  dependent  on  such  belief  is 
a  good  reason  for  patient  investigation  of  human  history. 

§  V.  The  Dark  Ages. 
The  dark  ages  in  Europe  have  been  commonly  attrib- 
uted to  inroads  of  the  barbarians.  This  must  be  incorrect. 
These  inroads  date  from  the  fifth  century.  The  last  Latin 
writers  of  note  in  Italy  *^  were  born  in  the  first  century, 
and  we  find  already  in  the  second  century  unmistakable 
evidence  of  that  social  and  political  barbarism  against 
which  even  in  the  preceding  one  civilization  was  ineffect- 
ually struggling.  This  barbarism  was  due  to  the  political 
power  of  the  lioman  aristocracy  and  to  their  depraving 
use  of  it.  The  so-called  barbarian  leaders  were  more 
civilized  than  their  Italian  subjects.  Under  their  rule 
Italy  was  improved*^  rather  than  injured.     The  reason 

"  Africa,  less  influenced  by  patricianism,  produced  from  A.  D.  175  to 
A.  D.  425  with  lesser  writers,  TertuUian,  Arnobius,  Lactantius,  noted 
for  his  pure  Latinity,  and  Augustine, — all  Christians.  Even  Gaul's 
monotheistic  section  had  during  this  period  more  writers  than  Italy. 

*^  "Odoacer  .  .  .  compelled  Augustulus  to  abdicate.  .  .  .  By  this 
act  an  end  was  put  to  the  western  empire.  ...  He  ruled  the  country 
mildly,  enforced  the  laws,  and  protected  the  frontiers."  —  Ne'w  Amer. 
Cyclopaedia,  12,  p.  488. 

Theodoric  "defeated  Odoacer  .  .  .  Under  his  fostering  care  Italy  be- 
came prosperous  again  ;  agriculture  and  industry  revived  ;  literature  and 
the  fine  arts  flourished  ;  internal  improvements  went  on  and  new  monu- 
ments were  erected."  —  New  Amer.  Cyclopaedia,  15,  p.  422,  coh  1. 
Theodoric  in  early  life  had  lived  amidst  Greek  culture. 


388  JUDAISM   AT   ROxME.  [CH.  XIV. 

why  monotheism  failed  to  improve  mankind  as  formerly 
was  its  union  with  ecclesiastical  and  political  power,  so 
that  it  was  expounded,  not  by  the  unambitious  and 
thoughtful,  but  by  the  egotistical  and  selfish  who  were 
able  to  crush  out  those  right-minded  views  which  inter- 
fered with  their  ambition  or  interest. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

MONOTHEISM. 


§  I.   Its  Origin. 

1.  Some  monotheistic  writers  regard  belief  in  a  Su- 
pi€me  Being  as  inherent  in  mankind,  so  that  only  excep- 
tional individuals  can  divest  themselves  of  it.^  The 
hi>itory  of   our   race   affords    no    support    to    this  view. 

i  The  above  view  —  blended  by  many  with  an  estimate  of  heathenism 

moi€  generous  than  just  —  has  been  metrified  by  Pope :  — 

"  Father  of  all  I  in  erery  age, 
In  every  clime  adored, 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  hy  sage, 
Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord  I  " 

One  of  our  widely  circulated  school-books  states  that :  "  In  all  nations 
and  in  all  ages  the  untaught  mind  of  man  has  sought  after  God,  a  first 
great  cause.  .  .  .  This  has  given  rise  to  various  systems  of  religion."  — 
Mitchell,  Keiv  Intermediate  Geog.  p.  14,  Phil.  1S74. 

Stoic  views,  whose  origin  was  unknown,  contributed  largely  no  doubt 
to  this  error,  but  its  chief  source  has  been  a  too  ready  assumption  that 
ideas  co-extensive  with  our  personal  observation  are  universal.  The  same 
method  of  inference  leads  one  of  Cicero's  speakers  to  treat  belief  in  a 
plurality  of  gods  and  in  their  human  form  as  universal,  and  therefore  in- 
nate. Epicurus  "  perceived  firstly,  that  gods  exist,  because  Nature  her- 
self had  impressed  an  idea  of  them  in  the  minds  of  all;  .  .  .  a  belief 
in  gods  is  necessary  because  we  have  implanted,  or  rather  innate,  knowl- 
edge of  them,  .  .  .  and  concerning  their  form  we  are  instructed  partly 
by  nature,  .  .  .  for  we  all,  of  every  nation,  have  by  nature  no  other 
form  for  the  gods  than  the  human."  —  Cicero,  Dc  Nat.  Dear.  1,  16-18, 
al.  43-46.     Compare  Ch.  III.  note  11. 


§  I.]  ORIGIN   OF   MONOTHEISM.  389 

Various  savage  tribes  —  if  evidence  can  be  trusted  —  are 
destitute  of  any  religion,^  and  a  large  proportion  of  man- 

2  "  The  situation  of  the  missionary  among  the  Bechuanas  is  peculiar. 
.  .  .  He  seeks  in  vain  to  find  a  temple,  an  altar,  or  a  single  emblem  of 
heathen  worship.  No  fragments  remain  of  former  days,  as  mementoes 
to  the  present  generation,  that  their  ancestors  ever  loved,  served,  or 
reverenced  a  being  greater  than  man.  .  .  .  Satan  .  .  .  has  employed  his 
agency,  with  fatal  success,  in  erasing  every  vestige  of  religious  impres- 
sion from  the  minds  of  the  Bechuanas,  Hottentots,  and  Bushmen.  .  .  . 
Dr.  Vauderkemp,  in  his  account  of  the  Kafirs,  makes  the  following  re- 
mark :  '  If  by  religion  we'mean  reverence  for  God,  or  the  external  action 
by  which  that  reverence  is  expressed,  I  never  could  perceive  that  they 
had  any  religion,  nor  any  idea  of  the  existence  of  a  God.  ...  A  decisive 
proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I  here  say  with  res2)ect  to  the  national 
atheism  of  the  Kafirs  is,  that  they  have  no  word  in  their  language  to  ex- 
press the  idea  of  the  deity. ' 

"  Among  the  Bechuana  tribes,  the  name  [for  God]  adopted  by  the  mis- 
sionaries is  Morimo.  .  .  .  Morimo  .  .  .  had  been  represented  by  rain- 
makers and  sorcerers  as  a  malevolent  sdo,  or  thing,  which  the  nations  in 
the  north  described  as  existing  in  a  hole,  and  which,  like  the  fairies  in 
the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  sometimes  came  out  and  inflicted  diseases  on 
men  and  cattle,  and  even  caused  death. 

"Morimo  did  not  then  convey  to  the  minds  of  those  who  heard  it  the 
idea  of  God.  ...  I  never  once  heard  that  Morimo  did  good,  or  was 
capable  of  doing  so.  Moi'e  modern  inquiries  among  the  natives  might 
lead  to  the  supposition  that  he  is  as  powerful  to  do  good  as  he  is  to  do 
evil  ;  and  that  he  has  as  great  an  inclination  for  the  one  as  for  the  other. 
It  will,  however,  be  found  that  this  view  of  his  attributes  is  the  result  of 
twenty-five  years'  missionarj^  labor ;  the  influences  of  which  in  that,  as 
well  as  in  other  respects,  extend  hundreds  of  miles  beyond  the  inmiediate 
sphere  of  the  missionary."  —  Moffat,  Missionary  Labors  in  Southern 
Africa,  N.  Y.  pp.  168,  177,  179,  180. 

"  The  aborigines  of  Australia,  Dr.  Lang  states  in  his  work  on  'Queens- 
land,' have  no  idea  of  a  supreme  divinity,  the  creator  and  governor  of 
the  world,  the  witness  of  their  actions,  and  their  future  judge.  They 
have  no  objects  of  worship,  even  of  a  subordinate  or  inferior  rank.  They 
have  no  idols,  no  temples,  no  sacrifices.  In  short,  they  have  nothing 
whatever  of  the  character  of  religion,  or  of  religious  observance,  to  dis- 
tinguish them  from  the  beasts  that  perish."  —  Christian  Register  (Bos- 
ton), September  21,  1861. 

•'So  far  as  my  information  goes,  the  religious  notions  of  the  Esqui- 


390  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  XIV. 

kind  lack  belief  in  a  Creator  or  Euler  of  the  universe.^ 
Early  imbibed  opinions  have  been  mistaken  for  inherent.* 

2,  A  different  view  attributes  the  origin  of  monotheism 
to  human  observation  and  reasoning.  The  universe  ex- 
hibits evidence  of  design  which  it  seems  impossible  to 
treat  as  the  work  of  chance,  and  whicli  cannot  be  ascribed 
satisfactorily  to  any  cause  save  intelligence.  The  argu- 
ment from  this  evidence  is  powerful,^  and  admits  no 
direct  answer,  yet  human  history  shows  that  it  can  be 
outweighed,  and  that  it  universally  has  been  outweighed 
in  communities  destitute  of  belief  in  revelation.  No 
community  lacking  a  belief  in  revelation  has  ever  believed 
in  a  Creator  and  Moral  Ruler  of  the  universe.^  Men  must 
have  been  unable  to  credit  that  such  a  being,  if  he  ex- 
isted, would  avoid  or  neglect  communication  with  his 
earthly  children. 

3.  Yet  another  view  is   that   monotheism  was   first 

nmux  extend  only  to  the  recognition  of  supernatural  agencies,  and  to 
certain  usages  by  which  they  may  be  conciliated.  .  .  . 

"...  The  walrus,  and  perhaps  the  seal  also,  is  under  the  protective 
guardianship  of  a  special  representative  or  prototype,  who  takes  care  that 
he  shall  have  fair  play."  — Kane,  Arctic  Explwations,  Vol.  2,  pp.  118, 
214  ;  N.  Y.,  1857. 

Compare  New  Am.  Cyclopaedia  (11,  p.  148),  article  Manitou. 

8  "There  is  in  Buddhism  neither  creation  nor  creator.  ...  It 
[Buddhism]  embraces  nearly  or  quite  .  .  .  three  hundred  millions  of 
human  beings."  —  J.  F.  Clarke,  Ten  Religions,  pp.  143,  146.  Greek 
and  Latin  mythologies  also  ignore  any  creator.  Compare  in  Ch.  I.  §  il. 
the  absence  of  any  term  for  a  Supreme  Being  in  Chinese. 

*  "  All  our  belief  begins  with  the  testimony  of  others.  .  .  .  The  man 
bom  in  China  believes  in  Confucius.  .  .  .  Every  one  born  a  Turk  be- 
lieves in  llohammed.  .  .  .  The  vast  majority  of  Trinitarians,  Unitarian.s, 
Episcopalians,  Methodists,  Quakers,  are  so  because  they  were  bom  so.  .  .  . 
We  begin  with  a  traditional  belief  which  we  accept  without  a  doubt."  — 
J.  P.  Clarke,  Hour  which  Cometh,  p.  47.  Stationary  communities  not 
merely  begin  with  but  retain  their  traditional  belief. 

6  SeeCh.  III.  notes  57,  59. 

^  "  There  are  three  religions  which  teach  .  .  .  true  monotheism.  These 
...  are  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Mohammedanism."  — J.  P.  Clarke, 
Ten  Religions,  p.  501. 


§  I.]  OKIGIN   OF  MONOTHEISM.  391 

taught  by  revelation.  In  favor  of  this  view  are  the  fol- 
lowing considerations.  The  people  among  whom  mono- 
theism originated  ascribe  it,  not  to  their  own  wisdom,  but 
to  a  divine  communication.  Further,  no  community  de- 
void of  belief  in  revelation  has  ever  been  monotheistic. 
Further,  God,  as  represented  in  Jewish  teaching,  takes  an 
interest  in  the  moral  welfare  of  our  race.  The  immense 
importance  to  mankind  of  acquaintance  with  such  a  being 
justifies  the  supposition  that  he  would  have  imparted  a 
knowledge  of  himself  by  revelation,  whilst  the  history 
of  men  elsewhere  renders  intensely  improbable  that  any 
pretended  revelation,  in  a  previously  heathen  community, 
should  have  been  mainly  addressed  by  its  author  to  our 
moral  sense.  To  a  believer  in  the  divine  authorization 
of  Jesus  there  is  yet  another  reason  for  believing  in  an 
earlier  revelation  to  the  Jews,  namely,  that  Jesus  assumes 
it  to  have  been  made. 

The  sacerdotal  and  ceremonial  parts  of  Judaism  were 
probably,  as  in  the  case  of  Christianity,  a  later  addition, 
of  human  origin.  The  Jewish,  equally  with  the  Christian 
revelation,  seems  to  have  mainly  addressed  moral  sense 
and  human  need  of  encouragement.'^  That  the  sacrificial 
law  formed  originally  no  part  of  it,  is  strongly  attested 
by  extant  statements  and  appeals  of  religious  instructors 
before  the  Captivity.^      Teaching  subsequent  to  the  Cap- 


'  Compare  Ch.  II.  notes  2,  9  and  10. 

8  Teachings  before  the  Captivity  in  Babylon. 
"  I  hate,  I  despise  your  feasts. 

When  ye  offer  me  burnt-offerings  and  flour  offerings, 

I  will  not  accept  them ; 

And  upon  the  thank-offerings  of  3-our  fallings  I  will  not  look. 

Did  ye  offer  me  sacrifices  and  offerings 

In  the  wilderness,  for  forty  years,  0  house  of  Israel  ?  "  —  Amos  5,  21-26- 
"  For  I  spake  not  to  your  fiithers,  nor  commanded  them 
Concerning  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices, 
At  the  time  when  I  brought  them  out  of  the  laud  of  Egypt; 
But  this  command  gave  I  to  them : 


392  JUDAISM   AT   EOME.  [CH.  XIV. 

tivity  implies  that  this  law  had  then  acquired  a  more 
recoonized  standing.^ 


'  Hearken,'  said  I,  'to  my  voice, 

And  walk  ye  in  all  the  ways  which  I  command  you.'  "  —  Jeremiah  7,  22,  23. 

"  What  to  me  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices?  saith  Jehovah; 
I  am  satiated  with  burnt-offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts; 
In  the  blood  of  bullocks  and  of  lambs  and  of  goats  I  have  no  delight." 

Isaiah  1,  IL 
"  For  I  desired  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice. 
And  the  knowledge  of  God  rather  than  burnt-offerings." —  Hosea  6,  6. 
"  I  will  take  no  bullock  from  thy  house, 
Nor  he-goat  from  thy  folds ; 

If  I  were  hungry,  I  would  not  tell  thee."  —  Psalm  50,  9, 12. 

"  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  Jehovah, 
And  bow  myself  before  the  most  high  God? 
Shall  I  come  before  him  with  burnt-offerings, 
With  calves  of  a  year  old  ? 

Will  Jehovah  be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams, 
Or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ? 

He  hath  showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good; 
What  doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee, 
But  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy, 
And  to  walk  humbly  before  thy  God?  "  — Micah  6,  6-8. 
"  In  sacrifice  and  oblation  thou  hast  no  pleasure; 
Mine  ears  thou  hast  opened; 

Burnt-off'ering  and  sin-offering  thou  requirest  not."  —  Psalm  40,  6. 
' '  Look  well  to  thy  feet,  when  thou  goest  to  the  house  of  God,  and  draw 
nigh  to  hear,  rather  than  to  offer  saeriiioe  as  fools.     For  they  consider 
not  that  they  do  evil."  —  Ecclesiastes,  5,  l. 

The  above  passages  are  given  in  the  translation  of  Dr.  Noyes. 

9  Teaching  after  the  Captivitt. 
"  For  when  ye  bring  the  blind  for  sacrifice, 
[Ye  say]  '  It  is  not  evil.' 
And  when  ye  oflTer  the  lame  and  the  sick, 
[Ye  say]  '  It  is  not  evil.' 

And  ye  bring  that  which  is  plundered,  and  lame,  and  sick. 
And  present  it  for  an  offering; 
Shall  I  accept  it  at  your  hand? 
Saith  Jehovah. 


§1.]  OEIGIN   OF  MONOTHEISM.  393 

To  assume  that  the  ceremonial  and  sacrificial  law  had 
no  recognized  standing  before  the  Babylonian  Captivity, 
implies  that  the  Pentateuch  was  not  written  by  Moses. 
It  nowhere  professes  to  have  been  written  by  him,  and 
speaks  of  him  always  in  the  third  person,  a  form  of 
self-designation  not  elsewhere  found,  I  believe,  in  Hebrew 
literature.  Its  conunencement  is  a  compilation  from  two 
different  documents,  —  or  classes  of  documents,  —  either 
of  which  must  have  originated  later  than  the  belief  in 
monotheism,  since  that  belief  is  incorporated  into  them.^*' 
Its  conclusion  must  have  been  written  long  after  the  time 
of  Moses.i^  To  a  critic  of  history  the  strongest  argument 
against  its  Mosaic  authorship  is  the  moral  impossibility, 
that  the  anti-ritual  writers  before  the  Captivity  could 
have  known  and  ignored  or  disparaged  teachings  by 
Moses  which  they  and  their  countrymen  would  have  re- 
garded as  express  injunctions  from  God.  A  believer  in 
the  divine  authorization  of  Jesus  would  find  it  difficult 
to  reconcile  his  remarks  to  his  disciples  with  the  suppo- 
sition that  he  regarded  the  Deity  as  having  through  Moses 
prohibited  certain  meats.^^ 


Cursed  be  the  deceiver, 

Who  has  in  his  flock  a  male, 

And  yet  voweth  and  sacrificeth  to  Jehovah  that  which  is  marred." 

Malaehi  1,  8, 13, 14,  Noyes's  trans, 
"Ye  have  robbed  me. 

But  ye  say,  '  Wherein  have  we  robbed  thee  ? ' 
In  tithes  and  offerings. 

Bring  ye  all  the  tithes  into  the  storehouse. 

That  there  be  food  in  my  house."  —  Malaclii  3,  8-10,  Noyes's  trans. 
^^  See  Apiiendix,  Note  L. 

11  "So  Moses  .  .  .  died,  .  .  .  but  no  man  knoweth  of  liis  sepulchre 
to  this  day."  —  Deut.  34,  5,  6. 

12  "Are  you  likewise  so  devoid  of  understanding?  Do  you  not  com- 
prehend that  nothing  external  can,  by  entering  a  man,  defile  him,  because 
it  does  not  enter  his  heart  ? "  —  Mark  7,  is,  19. 

Graves,  in  his  "Lectures  on  the  Four  last  Books  of  the  Pentateuch" 
(7th  edit.  London,  1846),  has  given,  on  pp.  439-  452,  Le  Clerc's  citations 
from  the  Pentateuch  in  proof  of  its  post-Mosaic  origin. 


394  JUDAISM  AT  EOME.  [CH.  XIV. 


§  II.   Judaism  a  Preparation  for  Christianity. 

The  nature  and  extent  of  the  preparation  made  for 
Christianity  by  Judaism  have  never  been  sufficiently 
stated.  Judaism  had  at  the  Cliristian  era  carried  mono- 
theism and  morality  into  a  number  of  lands.  The  com- 
munities which  received  these  two  elements  of  improve- 
ment had  become  noted  for  intelligence  and  prosperity, ^'"^ 
With  intelligent  morality,  however,  comes  a  spirit  of 
scrutiny.  Any  historical  evidence  of  a  revelation  made 
to  the  Jews  was  obscured  by  time  and  the  imperfection 
of  human  records.  Evidence  from  the  character  of  Jew- 
ish teaching  was  impaired  by  the  extent  to  which  human 
error  had  been  blended  with  the  recorded  teaching  of  rev- 
elation. At  this  period  —  when  intelligent  beings  craved 
sufficient  evidence  for  the  existence  of  a  Divine  Parent 
—  a  teacher  appeared  who  professed  himself  authorized 
by  God.  If  such  authorization  admit  proof,  this  would 
seem  to  have  been  supplied  in  the  case  of  Jesus.  The 
evidence  was  trusted  and  his  teachings  found  chief  ac- 
ceptance in  those  countries  where  monotheism,  the  result 
of  Jewish  teaching,  had  previously  done  most  for  human 
improvement.  In  Asia  Minor  Pliny  was  astounded  at 
the  prevalence  of  Christianity.  Syria  and  North  Egypt 
were  seats  of  its  early  strength.  The  fact  that  tlie  writ- 
ings which  constitute  the  New  Testament  were,  with  the 
exception  of  Matthew,  composed  in  Greek,  indicates  that 
the  earliest  Christian  teachers  found  their  disciples  among 
those  Gentile  populations  who  were  most  familiar  with 
Judaism,  and  whose  intelligence  best  fitted  them  to  scru- 
tinize the  claims  of  Christianity. 

1^  See  page  367.  Strabo  (Gcog.  14,  4,  13)  mentions  Tarsus  as  more 
scholarly  than  Athens  or  Alexandria,  and  implies  perhaps  that  its  citi- 
zens when  visiting  foreign  countries  were  more  eagerly  retained  there 
than  those  from  other  localities. 


APPENDIX. 


-      APPET^DIX. 


NOTE  A. 

SIBYLLINE  BOOKS. 

§  I.  Those  called  Cumcean  ;  a  Patrician  Forgery.     B.  C.  461  - 
B.  C.  83. 

Nearly  fifty  years  after  the  expulsion  of  kings  from  Rome, 
a  Tribune  of  the  people  (b.  c.  462)  proposed  the  appointment 
of  commissioners  to  prepare  a  code  of  laws,^  whereby  the  con- 
sular power  should  have  some  other  limit  than  the  pleasure 
of  the  consuls.  The  proposition,  deferred  at  that  time,  was 
renewed  the  next  year,  and  was  supported  by  the  whole  col- 
lege of  Tribunes.  Probably  the  resident  foreigners  sided  with 
the  popular  party  ;  for  the  Duumviri  Sacrorum,  or  "  Commit- 
tee of  Two  on  Sacred  Things,"  who  belonged  to  the  aristo- 
cratic faction,  professed  to  have  consulted  "  Books,"  according 
to  which,  "dangers  were  predicted  from  gatherings  of  foreign- 
ers, lest  they  should  make  an  attack  on  some  of  the  heights 
in  the  city,  and  thence  commit  slaughter."  ^  The  popular 
party  regarded  the  statement  as  an  imposition,  and  the 
Duumviri  "  were  accused  by  the  Tribunes  of  having  gotten 
the  thing  up  merely  to  hinder  the  law."* 

If  books  existed  which  contained  any  such  prediction,  they 
were  doubtless  a  political  forgery  for  the  occasion.  Perhaps, 
however,  the  forgery  of  what  was  afterwards  called  The 
Books,*  or,  still  later  perhaps,  the  Sibylline  Books,  did  not 
occur  until  the  Duumviri  found  it  necessary  to  justify  their 

1  Livy,  3,  9.  2  Livy,  3,  lO. 

3   Ibid. 

*  The  Latin  language  has  no  definite  article  corresponding  to  "The," 
hut  it  is  plain  that  in  after  times  a  command  by  the  Senate  to  examine 
"Books"  meant  an  examination  of  "The  Books,"  which  were  ofBcially 
guarded. 


396  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

assertion.  These  Books,  in  after  times,  seem  to  have  been 
intei'polated  at  the  pleasure  of  the  patrician  leaders  whenever 
their  sanction  was  wished  for  brutality  which  should  over- 
awe ®  or  mummery  which  should  quiet  ®  the  common  people, 

®  During  Hannibal's  campaigns  in  Italy  strife  ran  very  high  between 
the  patricians  and  the  plebeians.  After  the  battle  of  Cannre,  B.  c.  216, 
"the  Duumviri  were  ordered  [by  the  Senate]  to  examine  [The]  Books. 
.  .  .  According  to  [the]  Fate-telling  Books  certain  extraordinary  sacrifices 
were  performed,  among  which  a  Gaulish  man  and  woman  [his  wife  ?]  and 
also  a  Greek  man  and  woman  [his  wife  ?]  were  lowered  alive  in  the  ox- 
market  into  a  subterranean  place,  which  was  closed  with  a  stone."  — 
Livy,  22,  57. 

This  act  of  outrageous  barbarism  is  also  narrated  in  an  extract  from 
Dio  Cassius,  preserved  by  Isaac  Tzetzis,  which  speaks  of  the  Romans, 
under  Fabius  ^laximus  Verrucosus,  as  "burying  a  Grecian  and  Gaulish 
married  pair,  being  frightened  [thereto]  by  an  oracle,  wliich  said  that  a 
Greek  and  a  Gaul  would  [endeavor  to]  seize  the  city." —  Dio  Cass.,  ed. 
Sturz.  Vol.  1,  p.  14.  Fabius  Maximus,  named  Verrucosus  from  a  wart 
on  his  lip,  was  consul  seventeen  years  before,  and  also  the  next  year 
after,  the  battle  of  Cannfe,  and  was  Dictator  in  the  year  preceding  it. 
Either  of  these  dates  would  imply  a  different  year  from  that  assigned  to 
the  event  by  Livy ;  but  Fabius,  even  when  not  in  office,  may  have  con- 
trolled senatorial  action  to  such  an  extent  that  it  should  be  attributed  to 
him. 

^  In  the  year  B.  c.  399,  "a  rough  winter  .  .  .  was  followed  by  an  un- 
healthy summer,  pestilential  to  all  animals.  As  neither  a  cause  nor  a 
termination  could  be  found  for  this  incurable  destruction,  the  Sibylline 
Books  were  examined  by  a  senatorial  decree.  [In  accordance  with  these 
books]  the  'Duumviri  ifor  Sfy^red  Things'  having  for  the  first  ti.me 
made  a  feast  for  the  gods,  Lectisternium,  in  the  city  of  Rome,  pacified, 
during  eight  days,  Apollo,  Latona  and  Diana,  Hercules,  ]\Iercury,  and 
Neptune,  by  means  of  three  table-couches  provided  as  bountifully  as 
possible." — Livy,  5,13.  The  attractiveness  of  tliis  was  increased  by 
the  general  feasting,  in  which  the  people  were  expected  to  join.  Again, 
in  B.  c.  348,  a  pestilence  occasioned  an  inspection  of  these  books  and 
another  feast  of  the  gods.  Livy,  7,  27.  And  yet  again,  during  a  pesti- 
lence, "it  was  found  in  '[The]  Books'  that  Esculapius  [the  god  of  med- 
icine] should  be  sent  for  from  Epidaurus  to  Rome."  —  Livy,  10,  47.  On 
another  occasion  we  read,  "In  Rome  and  the  vicinity  many  prodigies 
occurred  that  winter,  or,  as  is  usual  when  superstitious  fears  are  once 
awakened,  many  were  reported  and  incautiously  believed.  .  .  .  The 
Duumviri  were  commanded  to  examine  '[The]  Books.'  .  .  .  First,  a 
lustration  of  the  city  was  hehl,  and  victims  of  tlie  more  important  kind 
were  sacrificed  to  particular  deities.  Forty  pounds  of  gold  were  carried 
as  a  gift  to  the  temple  of  Juno  at  Lanuvium.  The  matrons  dedicated 
a  brazen  standard  to  Juno  on  the  Aventine  mount.  A  feast  for  the  gods 
was  commanded  to  be  held  at  Cwre,  ...  a  feast  to  the  goddess  of  youth 
at  Rome,  .  .  .  and  Gains  Atilius  Serranus,  the  pretor,  was  onh'red  to 
assume  vows,  [to  be  performed]  if  at  the  end  of  ten  years  the  Republic 
remained  in  the  same  condition  as  then.  These  things  pei'formed  and 
vowed  in  accordance  with  the  Sibylline  Books,  removed  in  a  great  degree 


§!•] 


THOSE   CALLED   CUM^AN.  397 


or  for  political  chicanery ''  of  whatever  kind,   if  favorable  to 
their  own  party. 


the  superstitious  fears  from  men's  minds."  — Livy,  21,  62.  This  was  in 
time  of  war.  Some  details  of  the  performance  are  omitted.  Aeain,  in 
the  year  b.  c.  181,  prodigies  and  a  pestilence  caused  a  decree  tnat  the 
Decemvirs  should  examine  "[The]  Books."  The  Decemvirs  ordered 
"supplications  for  one  day  at  all  the  shrines  in  Rome." — Livy,  40,  19. 
Probably  the  pestilence  and  the  alarm  of  the  peojile  continued,  since, 
"by  the  direction  of  the  same  [Decemvirs]  iisdem  auctorihus,  the  Senate 
decreed,  and  the  consuls  proclaimed,  that  supplication  and  sacrifices 
should  be  made  for  three  days  throughout  all  Italy."  —  Ibid.  As  the 
authority  of  the  Decemvirs  rested  exclusively  on  "The  Books"  which 
they  consulted,  their  direction  fairly  implies  that  in  these  books,  written 
professedly  when  Konie  had  no  control  over  Italy,  they  had  found  author- 
ity for  this  senatoi'ial  decree. 

.  "^  An  instance  of  this  occurred,  b.  c.  205,  which  needs  a  word  of  expla- 
nation. The  Roman  army  was  rapidl}^  dwindling  in  front  of  the  Cartha- 
ginians from  disease,  which  threatened  to  extenninate  it.  (Livy,  29,  10.) 
The  Senate  must  have  needed  the  assistance  of  the  whole  people  in  order 
to  prosecute  the  war,  and  must  have  found  that  burying  Gauls  and  Greeks 
alive  was  not  the  most  efficacious  method  of  conciliating  those  important 
elements  of  their  population.  There  existed  at  this  time  a  large  settle- 
ment of  Gauls  in  Asia  Minor,  in  what  was  called  Gallograxin,  Gaulish 
Greece,  or  Galatia,  Gaulish  Asia,  a  province  adjoining  on  the  north  side 
of  Phrygia  and  Cappadocia,  and  which  had  once  constituted  a  ]iart  of 
Phrygia.  These  Gauls  were  the  descendants  of  a  force  —  the  remains 
of  that  under  Brennus  —  which  had  conquered,  and  settled  in,  a  portion 
of  Phrygia,  where  their  language  ajipears  to  have  been  perpetuated  with 
hardly  any  change  until,  at  least,  the  fourth  century;  for  Jerome  says 
(0pp.  edit.  Vallars.  Vol.  7,  pp.  429,  430),  that  it  was  then  the  same  as 
that  spoken  at  Treves.  In  the  southwest  of  Galatia  was  a  city  called 
Pessinus,  —  subsequently  the  capital  of  one  half  of  the  province, — and 
near  this  city  was  a  large  stone,  or  rock,  which  had  become  an  object  of 
worship,  a  remnant  doubtless  of  Druidism,  on  the  part  of  the  Gauls. 
From  them  it  must  have  received  its  name  of  Agdistis ;  though  it  had 
another  name,  —  "Thk  Id.ean  Mother," — given  to  it  evidently  by 
Greeks,  and  probably  in  jest.  Perhaps  it  rested  on  some  hill  which  they 
had  called  Mount  Ida.  The  Roman  Senate,  having  at  this  juncture  or- 
dered an  investigation  of  the  Sibylline  Books,  not,  professedly,  because 
of  the  critical  military  condition,  but  because  of  certain  falling  stones, 
did  not  apparently  find  anything  concerning  the  stones,  but  found  a 
■statement  that,  "Whenever  a  foreign  enemy  waged  war  on  Italian  soil, 
he  could  be  driven  from  Italy  and  conquered,  if  the  Id.Tean  Mother  should 
be  brought  from  Pessinus  to  Rome." — Livy,  29,  10.  An  embassy  was 
accordingly  sent  with  much  pomp  to  Asia  Minor.  To  guard  against 
wounding  the  national  pride  of  Greek  residents  at  Rome,  it  .stopped  at 
Delphi,  the  seat  of  the  renowned  Greek  oracle.  Already  before  its  de- 
parture GIFTS  had  been  sent  to  this  oracle,  and  a  response  returned 
that  the  Romans  were  about  to  gain  such  a  victory  that  they  could  not 
carry  away  the  spoils.  When  the  embassy  arrived  the  accommodating 
oracle  assured  them  that  King  Attains  would  put  them  in  possession  of 


398  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

It  was  of  course  necessary  to  give  some  account  of  these 
Books,  and  the  story  of  their  sale  by  a  woman  to  a  Roman 
king  *  was  perhaps  the  best  which  the  patricians  found  them- 


what  they  wanted,  and  that  the  best  Roman  citizen  must  be  ready  to 
receive  the  gotldess  on  her  arrival.  King  Attains  "  having  received  the 
embassy  cordially,  took  them  to  Pessinus  in  Phrygia,  and  gave  them  a 
sAuiiED  STONE  which  tlic  inhabitants  proxounckd  to  be  'the  mother  of 
the  gods,'  and  ordered  it  to  be  sent  to  Rome." — Livy,  29,  11.  The 
priests  of  this  stone  at  Rome,  as  in  Asia  Minor,  either  were,  or  were 
called.  Gain,  Ganls.  It  was  perhaps  anticipated  that  the  Gauls  at  Rome 
would  take  pride  in  the  power  attributed  to  a  divinity  of  their  own  na- 
tion, and  wouhl  be  anxious  that  her  credit  should  not  be  impaired  by 
any  furtlier  defeat  to  the  Romans.  The  priests,  or  attendants,  of  this 
stone,  Idccce  vuitris  famuli,  were  the  only  ones  at  Rome  who  (Cicero, 
Dc  Legibus,  2,  9,  16  ;  al.  -11,  40)  had  the  privilege  of  begging  ;  a  tolera- 
bly satisfactory  evidence  that  they  were  not  selected  from  aristocratic 
circles,  and  suggesting  suspicion  that  after  the  stone  had  answered  its 
])olitical  object,  the  Senate  did  not  care  to  expend  much  upon  its  wor- 
ship. The  temple  of  the  Idaian  Mother  was  not  dedicated  until  thirteen 
years  after  she  (?)  had  reached  Rome,  and  then,  peihaps,  a  war  with  a 
tribe  of  Gauls,  and  an  impending  war  with  Antioclius  (Livy,  36,  36), 
may  have  quickened  in  the  Senate  a  sense  of  its  importance. 

Tlie  jn'iesthood  of  this  stone  seems  to  have  continued  at  Pessinus; 
since  members  of  it,  some  fifteen  years  later  than  the  above-mentioned 
embassy,  met  the  Roman  armj',  and  jjrophesied  its  victory  over  the  tlum 
retreating  Gauls.  (Livy,  38,  is.)  Tliis  and  the  allusion  by  Arnobius 
(5,  ."))  to  the  stone's  "unheard  of  size"  might  raise  suspicion  that  the 
Roman  ambassadors  had  contented  themselves  with  some  more  jJortable 
rock,  and  liad  left  the  original  one  where  it  previously  stood. 

^  "  It  is  said  that  under  tlie  reign  of  Tan^uin  [the  proud]  another 
very  wonderful  piece  of  good  fortune  befell  the  city  of  the  Romans 
through  tlie  benevolence  of  some  god  or  [good]  demon,  which,  not  for 
a  brief  period  only,  but  during  the  city's  whole  existence,  often  saved  ns 
from  great  evils.  A  certain  woman,  not  of  his  own  dominions,  came  to 
the  king,  wishing  to  sell  him  nine  books  full  of  Sibylline  oracles.  As 
Tarquin  declined  paying  the  price  asked  by  her,  she  went  off  and  burned 
three,  and  shortly  returned,  offering  to  sell  the  othei's  for  the  same  price. 
Being  regaided  as  silly,  and  laughed  at  for  oflering  the  smaller  number 
at  wliat  she  could  not  obtain  for  the  larger,  she  again  went  off  and  burned 
the  half  of  what  remained,  and  returned,  asking  the  same  amount  of 
money  for  the  three.  Tarquin,  wondering  at  her  resoluteness,  sent  for 
his  diviners,  and  narrating  the  afilair,  asked  what  he  should  do.  They, 
learning  through  certain  signs  that  a  god-given  blessing  had  been  re- 
jected, and  explaining  to  him  that  his  not  purchasing  all  the  books  was 
a  great  misfortune,  commanded  him  to  pay  the  woman  her  ]n  ice,  and  to 
take  the  oi-acles  whiidi  were  left.  The  woman,  therefore,  giving  him  the 
books,  and  telling  him  to  guard  them  carefully,  disai'I'icauhu  kro.m 
AMONG  men."  —  Dionys.  Halicarnas.  4,  c-i.  At  the  close  of  the  nar- 
rative, part  only  of  wliich  is  Jicrf  cited,  Dionysius  says  that  he  is  merely 
quoting  from  Varro.  Whether  this  remark  applies  to  the  foregoing,  as 
well  as  to  the  latter  part  of  his  narrative,  I  am  uncertain.     Lactantius, 


§1.]  THOSE   CALLED   CUM^AN.  399 

selves  able  to  invent.  Whether  this  tale  was  coeval  with  the 
forgery,  and  whether  the  woman  was  originally  styled  Sibylla, 
may  be  doubted.  Had  the  forgers  originated  a  definite  ac- 
count of  the  books,  there  would  probably  have  been  less  dis- 
crepance in  subsequent  narratives.  The  earliest  allusion  to 
Sibylla  (for  tlie  name  originally  designated  but  one  person) 
occurs  in  the  writings  of  Aristophanes,  a  comedian,  about 
forty  years  after  the  above-mentioned  appeal  to  "  Books,"  and 
almost  a  century  after  expulsion  of  kings  from  Rome.  Plato 
some  years  later  also  mentions  her.  She  may  have  been  a 
then  existing  celebrity,  or  some  tradition  of  Sibylla,  a  wise 
woman,  may  have  existed  at  Cumse,  which  was  a  commercial 
metropolis  before  Rome  was  more  than  an  unimportant  town.^ 
The  patricians,  when  pushed  to  the  wall,  may  have  availed 
themselves  of  it  in  accounting  for  their  forgery.  No  writings 
of  this  lady  seem  to  have  been  heard  of  in  Italy  or  elsewhere 
outside  of  the  Roman  archives ;  and  nothing  can  be  more 
manifest  than  that  those  inside  were  manufactured  by  sena- 
torial leaders  as  occasion  required. 

That  the  leaders  of  the  popular  party  should  object  to  the 
sole  custodianship  of  such  books  being  in  the  hands  of  their 
opponents  is  natural ;  and  tliis,  perhaps,  caused  a  trifling  con- 
cession on  the  part  of  the  latter,  namely,  that  to  the  Duumviri 
should  be  added  as  servants  two  common  people,  in  whose 
presence,  if  at  all,  the  books  must  be  inspected.^"  That  this 
insufficient  concession  should  not  quiet  the  popular  leaders, 
and  that  they  should  desire  to  scrutinize  the  books,  is  suppos- 
able  enough.  The  effort  to  ward  off  such  scrutiny  may  have 
caused  the  patricians  to  invent  the  story  that  a  former  keeper 

who  also  professes  to  copy  Varro,  says  tliat  tlie  books  were  ofTered  to 
Tarquiiiius  Priseus. 

The  ehler  Pliny,  who  was  later  than  Varro  or  Dionj'sins,  says,  "All 
agree  (?)  that  Silwlla  brought  thkek  books  to  Tari|uiii  the  Proud,  of 
which  two  were  burnt  by  herself,  and  the  third  in  tlie  age  of  Sylla,  in 
the  conflagration  of  the  Capitol." —Pliny,  Xnf.  Ifisf.  13,  27  (al.  ):;). 

9  See  hi  the  Ne'w  American  Cyclopaedia  the  article  C'umcv.  The 
allusions  to  Sibylla  will  be  found  in  Ai'istophanes,  Eircne  {Pence),  lines 
1096,  1117,  and  in  Plato,  Stallbauni's  edit.  Voh  8,  p.  392;  Bohn's  trans. 
Vol.  4,  p.  406. 

1'^  Taninin,  selecting  two  distinguished  citizens  and  joining  to  them 
two  plebeians  as  sekvani's,  intrusted  to  them  the  care  of  the  l)ooks. 
"  One  of  these  [distinguished  citizens]  proving  in  some  way  unfaithful 
to  his  trust,  and  being  informed  upon  by  one  of  the  jjlebeians,  [the  king] 
sewing  him  into  a  leather  sack,  as  if  he  were  a  parricide,  cast  him  into 
the  sea. 

"After  the  expulsion  of  the  kings,  the  city  taking  charge  of  the  oracles 


400  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

of  them  had  for  infidelity  to  his  trust  been  sewed  into  a  sack 
and  drowned.-^^  In  the  account  of  him  it  is  noteworthy  that 
his  accuser  is  made  to  be  one  of  the  servant  commoners. 
Regarded  from  this  point  of  view,  the  jealous  seclusion  of  the 
books  could  not  be  charged  on  the  patricians  as  a  mere  party 
procedure.  They  would  say  that  the  effort  to  punish  a  viola- 
tion of  this  seclusion  had  come  ft-om  the  party  of  their  oppo- 
nents, and  must  be  regarded  as  evincing  the  common  opinion 
of  the  time  when  it  occurred. 

About  the  year  b.  c.  3G7  (following  Smith's  chronologj^)  ten 
men  were  chosen  for  the  care  of  these  books,  one  half  of  whom 
were  plebeians,  and  not  apparently  servants.  This  took  place 
during  a  prolonged  and  hard  struggle  between  the  two  fac- 
tions, ^'•^  and  must  have  been  but  a  nominal  protection  to  the 
popular  party,  since  the  books  were  in  a  building  controlled 
by  the  Senate.  The  live  plebeians  might  be  present  when  an 
examination  was  made,  and  might  find  themselves  the  miwill- 
ing  witnesses  to  some  passage  which  had  been  previous!}'  in- 
terpolated. Still  later  the  number  was  increased  to  fifteen, 
a  change  conjecturally  attributed  to  Sylla.  If  he  were  the 
author  of  it,  we  may  be  sure  that  as  the  number  could  not  be 
equally  divided,  the  patricians  would  have  the  advantage. 
Julius  Cajsar  added  a  sixteenth,-'^  perhaps  to  restore  equilib- 
rium ;  but  the  addition  was  probably  dropped  again,  for  the 
name  Quindecemvirs  was  the  one  in  subsequent  use. 

Our  materials  for  Roman  history  come  so  exclusively  from 
patrician  sources,  that  we  have  insufficient  means  of  know- 
ing the  views  of  intelligent  plebeians  concerning  these 
"  Books."  On  one  occasion,  what  seems  to  have  been  a  coun- 
ter-forgery was  gotten   up,  whether  as  a  mere  burlesque  on 

appointed  as  their  guardians  the  most  prominent  men,  who  hohl  this 
charge  during  life,  being  exempt  from  military  service  and  other  eivil 
duties  ;  and  they  add  to  them  plebeians,  witliout  wliom  it  is  not  lawful  to 
the  men  to  make  an  inspection  of  tlie  oraches."  — Dionys, Halicarnas. 
4,  62. 

11  "King  Tarquin  commanded  that  ^Lircus  Tullius,  the  Duumvir, 
should  be  sewed  in  a  sack  and  cast  into  the  sea,  because,  being  bribed,  he 
liad  given  for  transcription  to  Petronins  Sabinus  'a  book'  (or  perhajis 
'  the  book  ')  which  contained  the  saci'ed  secrets  pertaining  to  the  state  ; 
and  this  kind  of  jiunishnn-nt  was  long  alterwards  adopted  by  the  law 
against  parricides."  — Valerius  Maximus,  1,  1,  13.  Compare  the  first 
])aragrai)h  of  an  extract  from  Uionysius  of  Hulicarnassus  in  the  preced- 
ing note. 

'-  Livy,  6,  42. 

1^  Dio  Cassius,  42,  51. 


§^] 


THOSE   CALLED   CUM.^AN.  401 


that  of  the  Senate,  or  for  some  political  object,  cannot  he  cer- 
tainly determined.  It  was  evidently  unfavoi-able  to  senatorial 
prejudices,  since  the  Senate  ordered  it  to  be  burned.  The 
Tribunes  of  the  People  may  have  thought  that  they  would 
lose  more  than  they  could  gain  by  defending  it." 

In  the  year  b.  c.  83  the  Capitol  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and 

1*  The  reader  by  returning  to  note  6  will  find  that  in  b.  c.  181  a  pesti- 
lence was  raging,  and  that  the  remedy  first  tried,  though  professedly  from 
[The]  Books,  seems  to  have  proved  insufficient,  and  to  have  been  followed 
by  an  additional  remedy  of  the  same  kind  taken  from  the  same  source. 
The  remedies  were  oj)en  to  scientific  criticism,  and  the  necessity  for  a 
second  implied  apparently  a  mistake  by  these  infallible  books  in  dictating 
the  first. 

"That  same  year,  on  the  farm  of  Lucius  Petillius,  the  scribe,  near  the 
Janiculum,  in  cultivating  the  earth  deeply,  two  stone  ciiests  were  found, 
each  almost  eight  feet  long  and  four  broad,  the  covers  being  bound  with 
lead.  Each  chest  was  inscribed  with  Latin  and  Greek  letters  [according 
to  which]  Numa  Pompilius,  son  of  Pompo,  was  buried  in  the  one  ;  in  the 
other  were  the  books  of  Xuina  Pompilius.  When  the  owner,  acting  by 
advice  of  friends,  had  opened  the  chests,  tliat  whicli  bore  the  title  of  the 
buried  king  was  found  empty,  without  vestige  of  human  body  or  of  any- 
thing, time  having  consumed  the  whole  contents.  Jn  the  other,  two 
packages,  with  waxed  wrappings,  contained  seven  books  each,  not  only 
entire,  but  fresh  in  ajipearance.  Seven  in  Latin  were  concerning  Pon- 
tifical law.  Seven  in  Greek  were  concerning  Wisdom,  such  as  belonged  to 
that  age.  Antiars  Valerius  adds  that  they  were  Pythagorean,  his  belief 
being  accommodated  to  the  popular,  though  probably  false  opinion,  that 
Numa  was  an  auditor  of  Pythagoras. 

"At  first  the  books  were  read  by  the  friends  who  were  present  at  their 
discovery.  Afterwards,  when,  by  the  perusal  of  many,  they  had  become 
known,  Quintus  Petillius,  the  city  pretor,  a  great  reader,  obtained  tlieni 
from  Lucius  Petillius.  Their  intercourse  was  familiar,  because  Quintus 
Petillius  when  (puiistor  had  appointed  him  as  scribe  for  tlie  Decuria.  1  lav- 
ing read  the  headings  of  the  subjects,  and  perceived  that  the  most  of  them 
were  subversive  of  religion,  he  said  to  Lucius  Petillius,  that  he  purposed 
throwing  the  books  into  the  fire,  but  that  before  doing  so  he  would  give 
him  an  opportunity,  if  he  thought  that  he  could,  by  law  or  assistance 
[of  others],  reclaim  the  books,  to,  make  the  experiment  ;  and  that  he 
might  do  this  without  loss  of  favor  [from  himself]. 

"  The  scribe  went  to  the  Tribunes  of  the  People.  By  them  it  was  re- 
ferred to  the  Senate.  The  pretor  pronounced  himself  ready  to  make  oath 
that  those  books  ought  not  to  be  read  and  preserved.  The  Senate  decreed 
'  it  should  be  deemed  sufficient  that  the  pretor  off'ered  his  oath,  the  books 
should  be  burned  immediately  in  the  Comitium  [place  of  puljlic  assembly]; 
a  price  for  the  books  should  be  paid  to  their  owner,  to  be  determined  by 
Quintus  Petillius,  the  pretor,  and  the  majority  of  the  Popular  Tribunes.' 
The  scribe  declined  this.  The  books  were  burned  in  the  Comitium  in 
presence  of  the  people,  the  fire  lieing  kindled  by  the  [official]  sacrificers." 
--Livy,  40,  29,  According  to  Pliny,  13,  27  (or  i;j),  the  name  of  the 
scribe  was  Cneius  Terentius.  Accounts  moreover  vary  as  to  the  number, 
of  the  books.     Compare  Plutarch,  Numa,  22. 

z 


402  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

tlie  alleged  Cumrean  composition  perished  in  the  flames.  Any 
extracts  from  it  now  extant  convey  the  idea  that  it  was  in 
prose.  Subsequent  documents  called  Sibylline  were  in  verse, 
which  may  have  misled  Livy  (29,  11)  into  calUng  an  apparently 
prose  extract  from  it  a  song.  Further,  the  reader  should 
note  concerning  this  patrician  fabrication,  that,  unlike  Jewish 
ones  of  subsequent  date,  it  did  not  concern  itself  with  moral- 
ity nor  with  a  future  existence.  Its  only  allusions  are  to  affairs 
of  this  life  ;  and  even  as  regards  these  it  confined  itself  to  the 
wants  of  Rome  and  its  vicinity. 

§  II.     Verses  from  Erythrce,  B.  C.  76. 

The  alleged  Cuma^an  composition  had  before  its  destruc- 
tion become  an  object  of  reverence  to  many  Romans,  both 
patrician  and  plebeian.  When  the  Capitol  was  rebuilt,  longings 
were  probably  expressed  that  "  The  Books  "  also  could  be  re- 
stored. Any  such  expression  of  longing  would  best  explain 
what  thereupon  occurred. 

On  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  opposite  the  island  of 
Chios,  was  a  city  of  Ionia  called  Erythrte,  situated  on  a  penin- 
sula. Some  Jew  at  this  place,  or  who  operated  from  this 
place,  fabricated  in  Homeric  verse,  and  largely  at  least  in 
Homeric  phraseology,  a  document  teaching  Jewish  views,  and 
containing  what  professed  to  be  predictions  of  well-known  his- 
torical events.  The  Roman  Senate  was  induced  to  send  three 
of  its  members  to  Asia  Minor,  in  the  year  B.  c.  76,  for  the  pur- 
])Ose  of  bringing  this  production,  which  was  carefully  laid  away 
in  the  Capitol. ^^  The  document  professed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  "  Sibylla,"  •'*'  meaning,  apparently,  the  alleged  authoress 

1^  Fenkstella,  a  Roman  historian  who  is  said  to  have  died  A.  D.  21, 
narrates  that  "on  the  restitution  of  the  Capitol,  C.  Curio,  the  consul, 
proposed  to  the  Senate  that  envoys  should  be  sent  to  ERVTHUiE,  who 
should  hv'nv^  to  Eonie  the  verses  of  Sihylla  which  diligent  senrch  had 
collected  ;  and  accordingly  that  P.  Oahinius,  M.  Oetavius,  and  C.  Valerius 
were  sent,  that  they  might  bring  to  lionie  about  a  thousand  verses  [that 
is  lines]  copied  by  individuals."  —  Fenestella,  quoted  in  Lactantius, 
Div.  Inst.  1,  (i.  The  concluding  words  of  this  extract  inqjly,  perhaps, 
that  the  envoys  did  not  see  anything  which  professed  to  be  original,  but 
merely  copies.  According  to  another  extract  from  the  same  writer,  "the 
Consuls  Curio  and  Oetavius  took  care  that  these  [verses]  should  bo  ])laced 
in  the  ('a]iitol,  which,  under  the  care  of  (}.  Catulus,  had  been  restored." 
—  Fenestella,  (juoted  in  Lactantius,  ])clra,  22.  Curio  nnd  Oetavius 
"A'ere  consuls  U.  c.  70,  in  which  yi'ar,  therefore,  this  took  place.  Strabo, 
Geog.  p.  567. 

•  ^^  1  use  the  Lntin  term,  liecause  1  suppose  it  to  have  been  at  this  date 
a  proper  name,  of  which  cither  A  Siljyl  or  'iiiK  Sibyl  would  be  a  misti'ans- 


§  II.]  VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR^.  403 

of  that  production  which  had  lately  perished.  A  spurious 
passage  still  extant,  in  the  name  of  Aristotle,^'  may  have  been 
forged  by  the  Jew,  or  by  some  accomplice,  as  a  means  of  gain- 
ing credence  for  this  assumption.  It  affirms  that  Sibylla 
came  from  Erythrse  to  Cumse.  If  the  Sibylline  fragment  ap- 
pended below  '^  formed  any  part  of  the  Erythrsean  document, 
it  must  have  had  the  same  object.  The  assumed  Sibylla 
represented  herself  as  the  daughter-in-law  of  Noah,  so  tliat 
the  advocates  of  antiquity  could  scarcely  in  this  respect  have 
found  another  to  overmatch  her  claims.  This,  and  her  sub- 
sequent residence  in  Italy,  implied  an  unusually  long  life ;  an 
attribute  which  we  find,  in  more  than  one  writer,  connected 
with  the  mention  of  her.^^  Her  prediction  of  Troy's  destruc- 
tion was,  among  heathens,  a  better  known  date  than  the 
Noachic  deluge.  The  author  of  this  Erythr?ean  document 
invented  the  idea  that  .'Eneas,  instead  of  remaining  at  Troy,  — 
as  implied  in  Homei-'s  lliad,^"  —  had  emigrated  to  Italy,^^  an 

lation.  It  became  gradually,  however,  a  common  name,  and,  for  the  sake 
of  convenience,  I  shall  sometimes  use  the  translated  terms,  which  repre- 
sent its  subsequent  meaning.  These  remarks  imply  that  1  do  not  believe 
in  the  genuineness  of  a  passage  concerning  "Sibyls  and  Bacides  "  current 
under  the  name  of  Aristotle  in  the  Problejis,  sect.  SO,  quaist.  1. 

"  The  forgery  reads  as  follows:  "  At  C'unue,  in  Italy,  is  .shown  a  sub- 
terranean cave  of  response-giving  Sibylla,  who,  they  say,  remained  a 
virgin  during  her  very  long  lite.  She  was  from  Erythra?,  but  was  called 
by  the  Italians  "Cuniiean,"  and  by  some  Melanchraena."  —  Pseudo- 
Aristotle,  DcmirahilibusAuscullaUonibus,  quoted  by  Opsopceus,  f/wc. 
iiibijl.  p.  58. 

18  "Since  the  time  when  the  tower  fell  and  the  speech  of  men 
Was  divided  into  many  human  dialects, 
I  —  liaving  ADDRESSED  first  the  kingdom  of  Egypt, 
Then  the  Persians,  Medes,  Ethiojiians,  and  Assyrian  Babylon, 
Tlien  the  great  self-conceit  of  Macedonia  —  am  sent 
To  tlie  little  kiuKdom  of  the  Italians  [now]  destitute  of  an  oracle." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  4-9. 

1^  Virgil  twice  calls  her  the  "long-lived  priestess."  —  ^-Emid,  6, 3-2l,028. 
In  Plutarch's  works  the  tract  on  the  Pythian  Oracle  mentions  "one 
thousand  years"  as  the  lifetime  of  Sibylla.  Vol.  7,  p.  561,  Keiske's  edit. 
Heathen  literature  did  not  justify  this  conception.  It  must  have  come 
from  the  Jewish  verses. 

"^^  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Biography  says,  under  the  article  yEncas, 
concerning  Homer's  narrative:  "Far  from  alluding  to  yEneas  having 
emigrated  after  the  capture  of  Troy,  and  having  founded  a  new  kingdom 
in  a  foreign  land,  the  poet  distinctly  intimates  that  he  conceives  /lilneas 
and  his  descendants  as  reigning  at  I'roy  after  the  extinction  of  tlie  Infuse 
of  Priam."  The  migration  of  .Fneas  to  Italy,  which  will  Ijc  found  here- 
after under  Part  D,  originated  doubtless  with  the  author  of  the  Ery- 
thra>an  vt-rses. 

21  Dionysius  of  Halioarnassus,  writing  shortly  before  the  Christian 


404  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

idea  which  Virgil  made  the  basis  of  his  ^Eiieid.^' "  Perhaps  one 
object  of  this  invention  was  that  he  might  represent  the  al- 
leged founder  of  the  Italian  state,  yEneas,  as  a  genuine  or 
practical  mouotheist,  a  subject  to  which  we  will  subsequently 
recur. 

Of  this  "  Erythraean  Sibyl "  considerable  portions  can  be 
identified  among  extant  Sibylline  verses  with  various  degrees 
of  probability  or  with  certainty.  Its  teachings  in  some  pas- 
sages seem  difficult  to  reconcile  with  a  deliberate  attempt  at 
fi-aud  on  the  part  of  its  author.  Perhaps  he  was  led,  or 
urged,  on  in  this  direction  further  than  he  at  first  intended. 
The  Senate,  in  receiving  it,  showed  a  gross  lack  of  critical 
capacity.  An  outline  of  the  production  may  render  it  easier 
for  the  reader  to  appreciate  a  discussion  of  its  constituent 
parts.  I  shall,  therefore,  under  seven  heads,  give  what  I 
deem  an  approximate  outline  of  the  whole  work  before  dis- 
cussing it  in  detail.  To  facilitate  reference  I  distinguish  the 
parts  by  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and,  as  an  aid  to  the  memory, 
subjoin  to  each  head  the  kind  of  evidence  on  which  rests  the 
argument  for  its  having  formed  part  of  the  Erythraean  lines. 

A.  An  admonition  to  recognize  one  God  ;  attested  by  Chris- 
tian writers,  and  corroborated,  perhaps,  by  Virgil.  Also,  a 
commendation  of  the  Jews  from  which  Lactantius  has  quoted. 

B.  A  narrative  of  the  creation  ami  of  man's  history  until 
Noah's  exit  from  the  ark ;  connected  by  strong  circumstantial 
evidence  with  part  G. 

C.  A  narrative  of  man's  history  after  the  flood  until  the 
rise  of  idolatry  and  the  beginning  of  war ;  attested  by  one  or 
more  Christian  writers,  with  corroborative  evidence  from  Vir- 
gil, Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  and  perhaps  from  Joseplius. 

D.  A  series  of  predictions  concerning  Jewish  and  Gentile 
history  from  the  rise  of  idolatry  and  the  beginning  of  war 
until  the  establishment  of  God's   kingdom ;   resting  on  hea- 


era,  says  that  "  all  Romans  affirm  the  advent  of  ^'Eneas  and  tlie  Trojans 
into  Italy,  of  whicli  also  their  doings  in  tlieir  feasts  and  saeiifiees  are  in- 
dicatiojis-,  also  the  Sibylline  books  and  Pythian  oracles,  and  many  other 
things."  — Antiq.  1,  49.  From  this  statement  two  inferences  seem  prob- 
able; namely,  that  other  nations  did  not  affirm  the  migration  of  .^neas  to 
Italy,  and  that  the  only  written  evidence  known  to  Dionysins  was  the 
Sil)ylline  books,  for  Pythian  oracles  could  not  well  be  classed  under  that 
head. 

21 »  On  Virgil's  use  of  this  document  see  the  two  preceding  notes  and 
pp.  418,  419  ;  cp.   pp.    160,  409,  414,  421,  422,    427,    42S,  430,  431,  439. 


§n-] 


VERSES  FROM  ERYTHRJE.   PART  A.        405 


then  and  Christian  testimony.     The  predictions  are  disjointed, 
and  some  of  tlie  original  ones  are  probably  lost  or  altered. 

E.  God's  kingdom,  —  an  era  of  peace  and  happiness  ;  at- 
tested by  Christian,  and  strongly  corx-oborated  by  heathen 
writers. 

F.  The  judgment.     No  unquestionable  external  evidence. 

G.  Concluding  words  of  Sibylla  ;  • —  attested  by  Lactantius, 
and  corroborated,  if  not  directly  attested,  by  Varro. 

We  will  now  attend  to  these  portions  in  detail. 

Part  A. 

This  division  of  the  Erythra3an  Sibyl  commenced  probably 
with  the  first  thirty  or  thirty-nine  lines  of  Book  4.  The 
Cohortatio  ad  Grtecos  quotes  seven  of  these,  24  to  30,  as  from 
the  Erythraean  Sibyl,"^'-  and  this  direct  testimony  of  an  un- 
known writer  is  supported  by  some,  and  harmonized  witli  by 
other  considerations  which  I  place  in  the  note.^^     In  another 

'■^2  The  title  used  by  the  Cohortatio  (c.  16)  is,  "That  ancient  and 
exceedingly  old  Sibyl";  elsewhere  (e.  38)  it  designates  her  as  "That 
MOST  ancient  and  exceedingly  old  Sibyl,  whose  books  are  preserved  in  the 
whole  world";  and  elsewhere  (c.  37),  as  "That  ancient  Sibyl"  who  was 
said  to  have  "come  from  Babylon  .  .  .  and  passing  into  Campania  .  .  . 
to  have  uttered  oracles  at  Cunuu."  This  language  could  only  be  appli- 
cable to  the  supposed  Erythrfean  Sibyl  who  professed  to  have  come  honi 
Babylon,  and  was  believed  to  have  settled  at  Cumce,  and  was  moreover 
the  only  one  whose  writings  Mere  distinctively  known,  so  that  they 
could  lie  appealed  to  by  name. 

^^  If  the  beginning  of  Book  4  be  Erythraean,  it  could  only  have  fitted 
at  the  comnieiicemeiit  of  the  ]n'oduction.  The  sole  question  is  whether 
it  be  such.  The  direct  testimony  of  the  Cohortatio  to  a  part  of  it  is 
strengthened  by  the  following  facts  and  considerations.  1.  The  Cohor- 
tatio, in  immediate  connection  with  the  seven  lines  mentioned  above, 
cites  (c.  16)  two  otiier  passages  as  from  the  same  Sibyl  {Frafpn.  1,  7-9 
of  the  Proem,  and  Book  3,  7-21  -  7-2:i),  both  of  which  are  attested  by  Lac- 
tantius (1,  G,  and  7,  ]!»)  as  Erytluiean.  2.  The  Sibyl  in  these  lines  pro- 
fesses an  impulse  to  tell  men  things  present  and  future.  Tliis  agrees 
with  the  plan  of  the  Erythraean  lines  (see  Part  G),  but  with  nothing  else 
extant  in  these  Oracles.  The  other  extant  Jewish  or  Christian  produc- 
tions, in  their  treatment  of  history,  never  deal  with  the  pi'esent.  This 
last  remark  applies  to  the  connection  in  Book  4,  in  which  the  thirty  lines 
now  stand  and  to  which,  therefore,  they  could  not  well  have  originally 
belonged.  The  Fourth  Book,  of  which  they  are  now  the  commencement, 
contains  no  history  of  things  coeval  with  the  Sibyl.  3.  The  Erythrsean 
lines  endeavored  to  imitate  Homer's  Iliad.  These  thirty  lines  seem  to 
do  the  same.  They  open  with  a  call  for  attention,  of  which  the  first 
word  is  that  used  by  Agamemnon  in  addressing  the  assembled  council  of 
Greeks  {Iliad,  2,  5(i).     A  slightly  different  form  of  the  same  word  is 


406  SIBYLLINE    BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

note  I  give  the  reasons  for  mistrusting  lines  31 -.39  as  not 
Erythrrean,  and  for  rejecting  what  follows  them.'-^*    . 

After  the  above,  either  immediately  or  with  other  matter 
intervening,  —  we  know  not  which,  —  seem  to  have  come  three 
fragments,  preserved  by  Theophilus.  Two  of  these,  number- 
ing thirty-five  and  forty-nine  lines  respectively,  are  attested 
by  other  writers, ^^  and  are  now  published  as  a  Proem  or  In- 
troduction to  the  Sibylline  Books,  being  numbered  consecu- 
tively by  Friedlieb  as  Fragment  1  and  Fragment  2.  The  third, 
consisting  of  three  lines,  belongs  probably  before  Fragment  2.'^'' 

used  by  Jupitt-r  in  addressing  the  gods  {Iliad,  8,  5),  by  Hector  in  ad- 
dressing tlie  assembled  Trojans  and  Greeks  {Iliad,  3,  80;  7,  (!7),  and 
occurs  repeatedly  in  the  IUi(d  (3,  !)7,  304,  45(i;  7,  .S4S,  SUS;  8,  4!i7;  17,  •.'■20; 
19,  101),  as  does  still  another  i'orni  of  the  same  word  (1,  37;  5,  115;  10, 
27s;  16,  r)l4 ;  23,  77o).  Again,  a  negative  followed  by  an  atfirniative  — 
KOT,  tollowetl  by  BUT  —  is  a  fret|uent  occurrence  in  the  Iliad  (1,  24,  25, 
93,  1)4,  115,  IKi,  124,  125,  131-135,  152-158,  lOS-lOS,  and  elsewhere),  and 
appears  also  (lines  4-6)  in  the  lines  imder  consideration.  Moreover 
the  supposition  of  an  attempt  to  imitate  the  Iliad  affords  the  most  satis- 
factory exitlaiiation  of  the  word  "  jieojtle  "  being  applied  to  Gentiles. 
The  Jews  habitually  limited  its  use  to  themselves  and  aiiplied  to  tiie 
Gentiles  the  term  "nations."  4.  Erythrfe  seems  to  have  been  the  only 
})laee  in  Asia  whence  the  Senate  obtained  Sibylline  verses  (see  under 
"  Additional  Remarks,"  in  §  5,  what  is  said  on  the  nomenclature  of  these 
Oracles),  and  the  first  of  the  lines  under  consideration  is  more  appropri- 
ate to  an  Asiatic  than  to  any  other  origin.  Jews  of  Greece  or  Rome 
would  have  been  unlikely  to  mention  Asia  first  in  appealing  for  atten- 
tion.    An  African  Jew  would  not  have  omitted  all  allusion  to  Africa. 

The  following  considerations,  moreover,  harmonize  with,  if  thej'  do 
not  corroborate,  the  Erythnuan  origin  of  what  we  are  examining.  6.  The 
Erythirean  was  the  most  elaborate  and  noted  of  the  Sibylline  productions, 
and  the  most  likely,  thei-efore,  to  have  a  well-considered  opening.  But 
the  lines  before  us  are  the  only  instance  of  such  an  opening  an.ong  pieces 
now  extant. 

2-*  Lactiintius  {Die.  List.  7,  2.3)  quotes  lines  40-43,  45,  46,  of  T!ook  4, 
as  from  A  Siliyl,  which  with  him  is  euuivalent  to  saying  that  they 
are  not  Erythnean.  Of  the  intervening  lines,  31-34  ditl'er  froin  the 
general  tone  of  Part  A,  in  being  moial  rather  than  theological,  and  they 
seem  to  be  connei^ted  with  lines  35-39,  which  resemble  more  the  utter- 
ance of  a  man  irritated  l)y  false  charges  fiom  Ids  neighbors,  th^n  the 
deliberate  production  of  a  person  writing  for  the  Roman  Senate  .some 
hundi-ed  miles  distant. 

^^  Lactantius  makes  seven  quotations  from  the  first  and  four  from  the 
second  fragment,  attributing  each  citation  to  the  Erythra'an  Sibyl,  and 
saying,  as  he  quoti^s  lines  5  and  Ct  of  the  fust  fragment,  that  fhey  aie  from 
the  beginning  of  her  song.  The  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  erroneoush' 
attributed  to  Justin  Martyr,  also  quotes,  as  we^  have  .seen,  Fi-agment  1, 
lines  7-9,  as  from  "that  ancient  and  exceedingly  old  Sibyl."  Virgil 
imitat<>s  a  ])assage  in  the  second  fragment. 

^^  The  other  Sibylline  (quotations  of  Theophilus  are  from  the  Erythraean 


§  II.]  VERSES    FROM   ERYTHR^.      PART  A.  407 

None  of  these  are  now  extant  in  Sibylline  manuscripts.  As 
some  readers  may  desire  to  peruse  these  pieces,  I  subjoin  them 
in  the  order  above  specified  :  — • 

"  Hearken,  People  of  vainglorious  Asia  and  also  of  Europe, 
To  all  the  verities  which  I  am  about  to  prophesy 
With  my  powei'ful  many-toned  voice, 
I,  an  oracle,  —  not  of  ftilse  Phcfibus  whom  silly  men 
Call  God,  and  make  believe  to  be  a  prophet,  but  —  5 

Of  tlie  Great  God,  whom  human  hands  have  not  formed 
In  likeness  of  speechless  idols,  hewn  in  stone. 
For  neither  is  his  dwelling  a  statue  seated  in  a  temple, 
Dumb  and  senseless,  a  grievous  shame  to  mortals, 
But  a  habitation  not  visible  from  earth,  nor  measurable  lo 

B}'  mortal  eyes,  nor  formed  by  mortal  hand. 
He  (who  sees  all  men  at  once,  but  is  seen  by  none, 
Whose  are  the  obscure  night  and  sunny  day, 
The  stai's  and  moon  and  sea  teeming  with  iish. 
The  land  and  rivers  and  voice  of  ever-flowing  fountains,  J5 

The  life-nourishing  creations,  showers  which  bring  forth 
Farm  fruit  and  trees,  and  vine  and  olive). 
He  has  spurred  my  inmost  mind  to  tell 
Accurately  to  mortals  the  present  and  the  future 
[From  the  first  U7it.il  the  eleventh  (/eneration.]^  20 

For  He  who  brings  them  to  pass,  told  me  all  things. 
Do  you,  0  People,  listen  all  Sibylla's  [words], 
Who  pours  fortli  with  hallowed  voice  a  truthful  utterance. 

Blessed  among  men  shall  they  on  earth  be 
Who  shall  delight  in  the  Great  God  and  offer  him  thanks  25 

Before  eating  and  drinking  ;  who  shall  trust  in  works  of  practical 

monotheism, 
Who  reject  all  temples  which  they  see. 
And  altars,  —  senseless  images  of  dumb  stone,  polluted 
With  soul-containing  blood  and  sacrifices  of  (quadrupeds, — 
Who  look  to  the  glory  of  the  One  God."  ^  30 


verses.  This  and  the  apparent  coherence  of  these  three  lines  with  Frag- 
ment 2  have  induced  me  to  prefix  them  thereto.  Since  doing  so,  I  notice 
that  the  same  position  for  tliem  is  suirgested  hy  Opsopoeus  on  page  4  of 
his  notes  to  the  Oracles  and  is  adopted  by  Alexandre. 

2"  I  suspect  the  Une  in  brackets  to  be  an  interi)olation  of  later  date 
than  the  disturbances  in  B.  c.  18-12,  under  Augustus.  See,  concerning 
the  Tenth  Age,  pp.  118,  119. 

'■*  Sibyl.  Orac.  4,  l  -  .30.  For  the  reader's  convenience  I  append  a 
translation  of  the  already  mentioned  Hues,  31  -  39,  tliat  he  may  exercise 
his  own  judgment  as  to  tlieir  Erythrrean  origin.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria quotes  Hues  33,  34  in  his  Pcedagorfiir,  2,  nn,  as  lie  liad  in  a  prior 
work,  Protrept.  62,  quoted  lines  27-30,  that  is,  without  informing  us 
whether  they  are  Erythi-iean. 

"  Neither  committino;  atrocious  nmrder ;  nor  thievishly 
Getting  enormous  gain,  —  both  fearful  things. 


408  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A, 

"  Mortals,  men  of  flesh,  who  are  as  nothin;::^, 
Why  60  prompt  at  self-exaltation,  not  looking  to  the  end  of  life. 
Do  you  not  tremble,  nor  fear  God,  your  Overseer, 
The  Highest  Observer,  —  Allseeing  Witness  of  all  things. 
The  all-nourishing  Creator  who  has  endowed  all  with  his  spirit    5 
Which  we  admire,  and  made  it  the  guide  of  mortals  ? 
There  is  one  God,  who  is  Alone,  Immense,  Unborn, 
Ruler  of  all.  Invisible  ;  seeing  all  things, 
But  unseen  himself  by  fleshly  mortals. 

For  what  flesh  can  with  its  eyes  see  the  Immortal  God,  lo 

The  Heaveidy  and  True,  who  inhabits  the  skies  I 
Not  even  before  the  beams  of  the  sua 
Can  human  beings  stand,  of  mortal  birth. 
Men  who  are  but  blood -^  and  flesh  with  bones. 

Recognize  Him,  who  alone  is  Guide  of  the  world,  u 

AVho  alone  exists  to  Eternity  and  from  Eternity, 
Self-born,  Unborn,  ruling  all  things  through  Eternity, 
Dwelling  in  all,  a  means  of  judgment  by  the  light  which  he 
imparts. 

You  have  the  reward  which  your  folly  deserves, 
Since  neglecting  the  true,  eternal  God,  so 

[To  honor  and  sacrifice  holy  hecatombs  to  him] 
You  perform  your  sacrifices  to  demons  in  Hades,* 
You  walk  insanely  and  blindly.     Forsaking  the  path 
Straight  and  easy,  you  stray  in  that  through  thorns 
And   stakes.      Why,  mortals,  do  you  wander  I     Stop,  heedless 
ones,  25 

[Roaming  in  darkness  and  rayJess  night  gloom,] 
And  leave  the  darkness  of  night.     Accept  the  light. 
Who  does  this  is  all-wise,  and  cannot  err. 
Come,  do  not  forever  seek  darkness  and  the  Underworld. 
See  how  especially  cheering  are  the  beams  of  the  sun.  30 

Place  wisdom  in  your  hearts,  and  know 
There  is  one  God,  who  sends  rain,  winds,  and  earthf^uakes : 
Lightnings,  famines,  plagues,  and  bitter  sorrow  ; 
Snow-storms  and  hail.     Shall  I  say  it  in  one  word "? 
He  guides  Heaven  and  aoverns  earth.     He  is  The  Ruler."^'      35 


Not  clierisliing  base  desire  for  anothei''s  partner, 

Nor  yet  unnatural  and  odious  hist, 

Whose  life  —  its  true  recognition  of  God,  its  morals  — 

TIk;  rest  of  niaid<ind,  eager  for  shanielessness, 

Will  not  imitate.     But,  with  mockery  and  derision, 

Babes  in  understanding  v;ill  falsely  charge  on  them 

Their  own  atrociously  wicked  deeiis." 

2^  Literally,  veins. 

^■^  Tiiat  is,  who  are  dead  and  gone  long  ago. 

^1  Theophilus,  ^d  Autvl.  2,  si; ;  coni(iare  Friedlieb,  Fragment  1, 
lines  1  -  :>'(.  To  the  above  Fi'icdlieb  erroneously  adds  tliree  lines  from 
Lactautius,  which  tliat  writer  attributes  to  another  Sibvl. 


§  II.]  VERSES   FROM    ERYTHR.-E.      TART   A.  409 

"  If  gods  liave  children  and  remain  immortal, 
The  gods  wouhl  become  more  numerous  than  men, 
Nur  would  there  be  room  for  mortals  to  stand." ^^ 

.         (? 

"  If,  however,  everything  born  must  also  perish, 
A  husband  and  wife  cannot  create  a  god  ; 
But  the  sole  God  is  One ;  the  Most  High,  who  made 
The  Heaven  and  the  sun,  the  stars  and  the  moon, 
The  fruitful  earth  and  watery  sea-surges,  5 

The  lofty  mountains  and  perennial  fountain  currents. 
He  renews  the  unnumljered  tribes  of  the  deep. 
He  nourishes  what  creeps  and  moves  on  earth. 
And  the  various  birds  of  clear  or  tremulous  note, — 
Nightingales  beating  the  air  with  trembling  wings.  10 

He  placed  the  wild  beasts  in  the  mountain-forests. 
To  us  mortals  he  subjected  domestic  animals. 
He  made  the  GoD-BEGOTTEN  a  leader  of  all 
And  sulujrdmated  to  Man  this  incomprehensible  variety. 
For  what  mortal  can  know  all  these  things?  15 

He  only  knows,  who  originally  made  them, 
The  imperishable,  eternal  Creator,  dwelling  in  ether, 
Who  gives  to  the  good  an  abundant  rewarcT, 
And  excites  for  the  evil  and  unjust,  anger 

And  war  and  pestilence,  yea,  lamentable  sufferings.  20 

Why,  causelessly  conceited  men,  do  ye  deride  [Him]  ? 
Shame  on  you  for  deifying  cats  and  reptiles. 
Has  not  insanity  destroyed  thought  [when  3'ou  believe] 
That  the  gods  steal  frying-pans  and  carry  oil"  earthen  vessels  1 
That,  instead  of  dwelling  amidst  plenty  in  the  golden  heaven,    25 
They  care  for  the  inoth-eaten,  and  are  frightened  by  spiders  1 
Senseless  worshippers  of  snakes,  dogs,  and  cats  ! 
You  deify  also  birds  and  reptiles, 
And  sculptured  stones  and  hand-made  images, 
And  stone-heaps  by  the  wayside.     These  ye  deify,  30 

Besides  numerous  absurdities,  unfit  to  mention. 

^-  Theophilus,  Ad  Aufol.  2,  ?,.  No  means  remain  of  determining 
wlietlicr  anytliing  is  wanting  between  tliis  and  the  next  quotation.  In 
the  latter  the  reader  shoukl  conipare,  with  lines  3-5  and  7-9,  the  fol- 
lowing ])antlieistic  imitation  of  them  by  Virgil,  who  represents  the  spirit 
of  Anchises  as  thus  conmiencing  his  exi)lanations  to  .iEneas  in  inesence 
of  Sibylla:  — 

'■'  To  begin  then ;  Heaven  and  earth  and  the  fields  of  Water, 

The  moon's  shining  orb  and  tlie  Titan-stars 

Are  nourished  by  an  internal  spirit.     A  mind,  infused 

Through  the  members,  moves  the  mass  and  mingles  with  the  mighty  body. 

Thence  the  race  of  men  and  of  herds  and  the  lite  of  birds, 

And  whatever  monsters  the  sea  bears  under  its  polished  surface." 
,     .    .,  -ffineid,  6,  724  -  729. 

A  smnlar  passage  occurs  in  the  Gcorcjics,  4,  2i?0-2-24. 

18 


410  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

Yet  your  gods  are  the  deceivers  of  ignorant  mortals. 

A  deadly  ])oison  tiows  from  their  mouth. 

He,  (jf  wliom  is  life  and  enduring  light, 

Who  pours  out  to  men  joys  sweeter  than  honey,  35 

To  Him  only  shouldst  thou  bow  thy  head 

And  incline  thy  path  amidst  his  constant  worshippers. 

Forsaking  these  you  seize  the  brimful  cup 

Of  condemnation,  strong,  undiluted,  and  overpowering. 

For  your  senseless  selves  ;  all  of  you  in  madness.  40 

You  will  not  sober  and  return  to  a  right  mind, 

And  know  God,  the  King,  the  All-seeing  One. 

Therefore  the  glowing  fire  shall  be  your  portion. 

You  shall  burn  unceasingly  through  eternity, 

Ashamed  of  your  false  and  useless  idols.  46 

But  those  who  honor  the  true  and  eternal  God 
Shall  inherit  life.     During  eternity  they  dwell 
In  the  fruitful  garden  of  paradise, 
Eating  delicious  breatP^  from  the  starry  heaven."'* 

Lactantius  quotes,  as  Erytlirsoan,  two  lines  from  the  follow- 
ing commendation  of  the  Jews ;  an  effusion  which  could  only 
have  belonged  under  Part  A  or  Part  D.  Its  use  of  the  pres- 
ent tense  renders  it  difficult  of  location  under  the  latter  and 
gives  it  an  apparent  coherence  with  the  former,  which  leads 
me  to  place  it  here. 

"  There  is  a  city,  CnALDiEAN  Ur, 
Whence  comes  the  race  of  most  upright  men, 
Who  are  ever  right-minded  and  their  works  good.  220 

They  are  neither  concerned  for  the  sun's  course 
Nor  the  moon's,  nor  for  monstrosities  on  earth, 
Nor  for  satisfaction  from  Ocean's  depths. 
Nor  for  signs  of  sneezing  and  the  augury  from  birds ; 
Nor  for  soothsaying,  nor  sorcery,  nor  incantations  ;  225 

Nor  for  deceitful  follies  of  ventriloc^uists. 
They  do  not,  Clialdajan  fashion,  astrologize, 
Nor  watch  the  stars.     (For  all  such  things  mislead,  — 
Things  daily  pursued  by  senseless  men, 

Who  discipline  themselves  to  nothing  useful,  —  230 

And  are  a  source  of  error  to  weak-minded  mortals. 
Causing  many  evils  to  nuudvind  on  earth 
By  misleading  from  right  ways  and  just  deeds.) 

But  they  are  concerned  about  u])rightness  and  virtue.'* 
Their  measures  are  just  both  in  fiekl  and  in  city. 

^  Tliat  is,  luaniia. 

**  Theophilus,  Ad  Autnl.  2,  .'!(;;  Frii'dlich,  rrocni.  2,  lines  1  -  49. 
*  Two  lines  between  tliis  and  the  ne.xt  are  absent  from  some  manu- 
scripts and  are  liere  omitted. 


§11.]  VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR^.      PART  B.  411 

They  do  not  steal  from  each  other  by  night, 

Nor  drive  oft'  herds  of  oxen  and  sheep  and  goats. 

Nor  does  neighbor  remove  his  neighbor's  fiekl-marks.         .        240 

Nor  does  the  wealthy  man  vex  the  poor  one, 

Nor  oppress  widows,  but  much  rather  assists  them, 

Providing  them  always  with  grain,  wine,  and  oil ; 

Always  a  blessing  to  those  in  want  among  the  people, 

He  gives  back  part  of  his  harvest  to  the  needy.  245 

Thus  they  fulfil  the  oracles  of  the  Great  God,  his  law  in  song,^ 

For  '  The  Heavenly  '  made  the  earth  common  to  all."  ^^ 


Part  B. 

What  seems  to  have  been  the  next  portion  consists  of  lines 
1  -  290  in  Book  1,  containing  an  account  of  the  creation  and 
of  other  circumstances  until  after  the  flood,  taken  from  the 
narrative  in  Clenesis.^^  These  lines  are  not  quoted  by  any 
ancient  writers,  possibly  because  their  contents  were  of  no  use 
in  the  controversies  of  that  day ;  but  a  sufficiently  attested 
passage  of  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  near  its  close  implies  that  a 
narrative  such  as  this  had  been  given  :  ^^  and  in  that  passage 
occurs  a  singular  use  of  the  word  vvixt^-q,  a  bride,  as  desig- 
nating a  daughter-in-law,  a  meaning  which  would  not  bo  sus- 
pected from  anything  in  the  passage  itself,  but  which  finds  its 
explanation  in   the   present  narrative.*^     Further,  the  state- 

^®  I  suppose  this  to  be  the  meaning  of  'iuvojxov  vfxvov,  an  accommodation 
probably  to  lieatlicn  views,  which  among  the  Greeks  expected  divine 
commniiications  to  be  in  verse.     This  line  may  be  interpolated. 

37  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  •21S--247. 

38  From  these  lines,  however,  should  be  omitted  193-196,  and  per- 
haps 184-187,  as  interpolations. 

39  See  Book  3,  Hnes  818-828,  quoted  under  Part  G. 

*°  See  the  quotation  of  Book  3,  line  826,  contained  with  other  matter 
in  Part  G.  Without  other  explanation  than  is  afforded  by  the  connec- 
tion  there,  Sibylla  would  appear  as  Noah's  wife. 

In  the  present  fragment,  when  tlie  time  has  arrived  for  Noah  to  enter 
the  ark,  God  says  to  him,  — 

"Go  in  quickly,  with  tbv  sons  and  thy  wife 
And  the  brides."—  1,  205,  206. 

And  again,  on  leaving  the  Ark  :  — 

"  Noah,  as  if  from  a  chest, 
"Went  courageously  ujion  the  earth,  and  his  sons  with  him  ; 
Also  his  wife  and  tlie  brides."  —  1,  275-277- 

And  again,  Sibylla  says :  — 

"0,  the  great  joy 
Which  vras  afterwards  my  lot,  in  escaping  frightful  destruction 


412  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

ment,  in  the  beginning  of  these  lines,  as  to  what  the  Sibyl 
purposed, ^^  agrees  with  the  concluding  statement  in  the  pas- 
sage mentioned,  as  to  what  she  had  accomplished. 

Part  C. 

This  portion  included  man's  history  after  the  flood  tmtil  the 
rise  of  idolatry  and  the  beginning  of  war,  —  two  evils,  —  the 
end  of  which  (according  to  Book  3,  line  806,  belonging  to 
Part  E)  will  occur  in  millennial  times. 

In  a  methodical  production  by  a  Jew  we  shonld  not  expect 
the  "tower  of  Babel"  and  the  "confusion  of  tongues"  to  be 
omitted.  Josephns*^  and  Theophilus^^  have  each  preserved 
as  Sibylline  a  narrative  of  these  events,  and  in  the  Sibylline 
Books,  as  published,  there  are  three  instances  in  which  a 
copyist  or  re-fashioner  of  the  Erythraean  document  seems  to 
have  saved  labor  by  opening  with  this  subject,*^  either  with 
or  without  an  allusion  to  the  preceding  flood. 

An  immediate  result  of  confusion  in  language  was  the  di- 
vision of  mankind  into  kingdoms,  —  three,  apparently,  since 
they  were  ruled  by  Saturn,  Titan,  and  Japetus. 


After  much  siiffering,  heiiig  buffeted  by  the  waves  with  my  bridegroom, 
His  brotliers,  liis  father  and  mother,  and  my  fellow-brides."  —  1,  287-290. 

The  Old  Testament  mentions  no  grandchildien  of  Noah  in  the  ark, 
which  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  his  daiighters-in-law  are  .styled 
"brides."  Considering,  moreover,  the  extent  to  which  the  Eiytlnwan 
verses  copied  Homer,  it  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  Iliad,  3,  I3ti,  Helen 
is  called  a  "bride." 

41  "  Beginning  with  the  first  generation  of  mortal  men 
I  will  prophesy  all  things  to  the  last. 
What  FORMERLY  WAS,  WHAT  NOW  IS,  and  what  hereafter 
Will  occur  to  the  world  because  of  human  irreligion. 

First,  God  commands  nie  to  state  exactly 
How  the  world  came  into  existence."  —  SibyL  Orac.  1, 1  -6. 

Compare  3,  sls-SiS,  alluded  to  above,  and  quoted  in  Part  G. 

*"-^  Antiquities,  1,  4,  §  3.  Josejjhus  .seems,  if  we  may  judge  from  his 
using  the  term  "gods,"  to  liave  quoted  at  .second-hand  through  some 
heathen  writer. 

*^  Ad  Autohjcum,  2,  ,31.  Of  this  citation  eight  lines  agree  with  an 
equal  number  constituting  ])art  of  a  passage  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles, 
3,  !)7-in7;  and,  of  the  remaining  two,  one  agrees  with  line  .^)  of  Hook  8, 
whilst  the  other  would  seem  not  to  be  extant  in  all  the  eojiies  of  The- 
ophilus.  So  at  least  I  understand  note  /,  on  page  371  of  Maran's 
Justin. 

"  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  1)7-100;  8,  4,  5;  9,  6-lC. 


§11.] 


VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR^.      PART   C.  413 


"  Men  called  them,  '  Noblest  cbildren  of  earth 
And  heaven' ;  naming  them  of  '  earth  and  heaven' 
Because  they  were  most  prominent  among  mortals. 
Into  '  thirds '  was  the  earth  divided.     According  to  each  one's  lot. 
Each  reigned,  having  his  part ;  nor  did  they  quarrel."  *^ 

Subsequently  a  difficulty  between  Saturn  and  Titan  was, 
through  the  interposition  of  their  mother  and  sisters,  ad- 
justed by  giving  supremacy  to  Saturn,  on  conditions  which  his 
brother  imposed,  and  which  his  wife's  maternal  feelings  led 
her  to  violate.  Thereupon  Titan  and  his  sons  imprisoned 
Saturn  whose  children  fought  for  his  release.  This  was  the 
first  human  war.^^ 

Lactantius  testifies  that  the  Erythrsean  Sibyl  contained  such 
an  account ;  *''  and  adds,  apparently  from  the  same  source,  that 
after  Saturn's  liberation  by  his  son  Jupiter,  he  was  prompted 
by  an  oracle  to  plot  against  his  son,  who  thereupon  expelled 
him.  Saturn,  after  much  wandering,  pursued  by  Jupiter's 
emissaries,  settled  in  Italy.**  The  testimony  of  Lactantius, 
if  it  needs  any  support,   is  strengthened  by  other  writers,''* 

*^  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  ill-  lis.  Tlie  whole  passage  is  comprised  in  lines 
108-155,  of  which  I  suppose  108,109,  to  be  a  later  addition.  See 
Ch.  VI.  note  4. 

*6  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  116-15.'5. 

*"  Lactantius  i[Uotes  from  Ennius,  a  heathen  writer,  an  account 
similar  to  the  above,  and  conuneuts  upon  it  as  follows  :  "  How  true  this 
account  is,  we  are  taught  by  the  Erythnean  Sibyl,  who  makes  nearly  the 
same  statement,  the  differences  being  few  and  unimportant."  —  Div. 
Inst.  1,  14. 

«  Ibid. 

*^  Athenagoras,  in  his  Lcgatio,  30  (pp.  307,  308  of  Maran's  Justin), 
quotes  lines  108-113  of  the  pas.sage,  attributing  them  to  Sibylla,  of 
whom  Plato  makes  mention.  Tertullian  {Ad  Nationcs,  2,  12)  quotes 
part  of  the  same  pas.sage,  attributing  it  to  Sibylla,  "who  existed  earlier 
than  all  literature."  This  work  of  Tertullian  comes  to  us  much  muti- 
lated. It  mentioned  (2,  17)  Saturn's  reign,  if  not  his  anival  in  Italy. 
In  the  parallel  passage  of  his  Apology  (10),  he  .speaks  of  Saturn  as  having, 
after  many  wanderings,  settled  in  Italy.  According  to  Dionysius  of 
Halicarnassus,  "what  is  now  called  Italy  was  sacred  to  this  c;od 
(Saturn),  and  was  called  by  the  inhabitants  'Saturnia,'  as  can  be  found 
stated  in  the  Siby'lline  Books,  and  other  oracles  given  by  the  gods."  — 
Antiq.  1,  .-54.  It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  that  Tertullian,  in  the 
passage  cited  of  his  work  Ad  Nationcs,  styles  the  Sibyl's  verses  "Di- 
vine Writings,"  or  Letters.  An  interesting  question  would  be,  whether 
the  special  worship  of  Saturn  in  Italy  can  be  traced  in  any  author  of 
earlier  date  than  the  Erythraean  lines.  The  reader  will  find  by  returning 
to  note  6  that,  in  a  feast  provided  for  the  deities  in  B.  c.  399,  Saturn  was 
entirely  overlooked.     In  determining  whether  this  si^ecial  attention  to 


414  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

one  of  whom,  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  is  an  early  one. 
The  object  of  the  Erythraean  writer  was,  probably,  to  explain 
the  origin  of  idolatry  by  attributing  it  to  a  human  misappre- 
hension. Tertullian  and  Lactantius  use  the  Sibylline  narra- 
tive for  the  same  object. 

Besides  the  above  there  is  extant  what  I  take  to  be  a  frag- 
ment —  with  alterations,  perhaps  —  from  this  Erythraean 
stoiy  about  Saturn. ^°  Virgil,  in  his  mention  of  the  Satur- 
nian  kingdoms,  must  have  had  in  view  the  Erythraean  pas- 
saae.^^ 


Saturn  in  Italy  were  a  perversion  of  some  Jewish  teaching,  it  is  at  least 
noteworthy  that  the  annual  oH'erings  to  him  were  on  the  day  of  the  Jew- 
ish passover  (see  Dionysius  of  Halicarnas.  1,  3S;  VoL  1,  p.  97),  and  that 
part  of  the  ceremony  might  have  originated  (com])are  pp.  151,  152)  from 
a  direction  to  tlirow  away  images.  Dionysius  recognizes  it  as  something 
distinct  from  eitlier  Konian  or  Greek  customs. 

^''  It  follows  the  narrative  of  the  Hood  in  Book  1,  and  is  in  part  as 
follows :  — 

"Tln-ee  high-minded  kings. 

Most  upright  of  mankind,  shall  apportion  [men's]  lot, 

And  govern  many  a  year,  meting  out  justice 

To  men  fond  of  labor  and  of  lovely  works. 

The  productive  earth  shall  sndle  again  with  many 

Spontaneous  fruits,  an  overdiarvest  for  posterity. 

But  these  progenitors,  untouched  in  all  their  days  by  age, 

Shall  be  free  from  diseases  and  chill-fevers. 

Thej'  shall  die  overcome  by  sleep,  and  depart 

To  Acheron  in  the  abodes  of  Hades,  and  there 

Shall  have  honor  because  they  were  a  race  of  'THE  BLESSED.' 

Happy  men  to  whom  Sabaoth  gave  good  understanding." 

SibyLOrac.  1,293-304. 

After  these,  according  to  the  same  passage,  came  tlie  Titans.  The  whole 
account  (lines  291  -  323)  is  followed  by  a  portion  of  Christian  origin.  I 
suppose  that  the  author  of  this  latter  prefixed  from  the  Erj'thr.'ean  verses 
the  account  of  the  creation  and  tlie  flood  (lines  1  -  290)  as  a  means  of  pro- 
curing greater  credence  for  his  work,  and  the  intermediate  lines  are  prob- 
ably an  attempted  condensation  of  some  Erythraean  ideas  which  he  did 
not  care  to  copy  at  length. 

°i  See,  under  Part  E,  tlie  quotation  from  his  fourth  Eclogue.  There 
is  in  Hesiod's  "Works  and  Days"  an  account  of  consecutive  ages  named 
after  the  metals.  The  "golden"  age  is  rc])resented  as  the  earliest,  and 
as  coincident  with  Saturn's  reign  in  Heaven.  Smith's  Did.  of  Biog. 
in  its  article  on  Hcsiod  (p.  441),  treats  this  account,  beginning  with  line 
109  of  Book  1,  as  being  the  second  of  three  interi)olations.  J  have  no 
means  of  determining  whether  it  be  of  earlier  or  later  date  than  the 
Erythrrean  docnnuMit.  But  that  Virgil  had  in  mind  the  latter  composi- 
tion is  obvious  from  the  following  considerations.  He  connects  his  ref- 
erence with  a  mention  of  the  Sibyl,  or  of  C'unnean  song.  Ht;  s]ieaks  of 
Saturnian  kingdoms  in  tlu^  plural,  which  agrees  with  the  Sibylline  idea 
of  three  kingdoms,  but  witli  nothing  in  the  "  Works  and  Days."     He 


§11.]  VEKSES   FEOM   ERYTHRyE.      PART   D.  415 

Part  D. 

To  this  portion  I  assign  whatever  in  the  production  related 
to  man's  history  after  the  rise  of  idolatry  and  before  the  estab- 
lishment of  God's  kingdom.  The  style  of  the  writer,  which 
in  Parts  B  and  C  was  narrative,  becomes  in  the  present  por- 
tion jiredictive. 

In  lines  248  -  294  of  Book  3  is  foretold  the  exit  of  the  Jews 
from  Egypt ;  also  their  captivity  at  a  later  date  and  the  de- 
struction of  their  temple  because  of  their  idolatry ;  and  the 
subsequent  restoration  of  that  building.  The  fragment  has  a 
somewhat  imperfect  appearance.  The  original  passage,  which 
it  partially  represents,  would  fit  naturally  into  the  Erythra;an 
composition,  and  pi'obably  belonged  to  it. 

As  regards  heathen  nations,  there  is  a  passage  concerning 
Troy  to  which  we  sliall  shortly  pay  attention ;  but  with  this 
exception  no  other  part  of  the  Erythraean  verses  seems  to  have 
suffered  more  at  the  hands  of  time.  Lack  of  interest  in  this 
portion  might  account  for  its  not  having  been  copied  by  the 
Christians ;  but  a  special  reason  for  neglecting  it  probably 
existed,  which  I  will  endeavor  to  unfold.  Cicero,  who  seems 
to  have  adopted  the  then  common  view,  which  identified  di- 
vine inspiration  with  divinely  caused  insanity,  argues  against 
the  inspiration  of  the  Erythncan  composition  on  two  grounds  ; 
namely,  that  it  was  methodical  and  that  it  contained  acros- 
tics.^^    Further,  an  extant  passage  in  the  Oracles  renders  it 

quotes  a  condition  of  things  mentioned  in  the  Sibylline  verses,  hut  not 
in  those  attributed  to  Hesiod.  A  "golden  age"  is  mentioned,  Sibyl. 
Orac.  1,  28:'.,  284. 

^^  Cicero,  in  the  first  book  of  his  work  on  THvination,  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  his  brother  the  current  arguments  in  behalf  of  po]iular  belief, 
and  in  the  second  book  gives,  in  his  own  person,  answers  thereto.  In 
Book  1  (18),  ?,i,  his  brother  is  represented  as  attributing  foreknowledge 
to  the  Erythra?an  Sibyl.  In  Book  2  (54),  110,  111,  Cicero  responds: 
"Let  us  examine  Sibylla's  verses,  which  she  is  said  to  have  poured  out 
during  a  frenzy.  .  .  .  Tliat  that  song  is  not  the  production  of  a  fren- 
zied person,  both  the  poem  itself  indicates  (for  it  is  more  a  work  of  art 
and  diligence  than  of  excitement  and  impulse)  and  also  that  [peculiarity] 
which  is  called  an  acrostic,  in  which  something  is  connected  in  regular 
order  by  the  first  letter  of  the  verses  [«.s  in  certain  covipositions  of 
Ennius,  ivhich.  Eiinius  made].  That  certainly  is  the  work  of  an  atten- 
tive rather  than  of  a  frenzied  ndiid.  But  in  the  Sibylline  verses,  from 
the  first  verse  of  any  paragraph,  a  whole  song  is  [consecutively]  woven 
together  by  means  of  the  first  letters  of  that  paragra])h.  This  is  the 
work  of  an  author,  not  of  a  frenzied  person ;  the  work  of  a  laboiious 
mind,  not  of  a  crazy  one." 


416  SIBYLLINE    BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

probable  that  these  acrostics  were  in  that  portion  which  pre- 
dicted the  fate  of  nations.^  Still  further,  acrostics  after  the 
time  of  Cicero  and  Varro  came  to  be  regarded  as  evincing  the 
spurious  character  (whatever  that  might  mean)  of  any  Sibyl- 
line composition  in  which  they  were  found.  A  natural  conse- 
quence was,  that  whoever  wished  to  use  Sibylline  verses  as  an 
authority,  would  be  anxious  that  they  should  neither  contain, 
nor  be  connected  with,  acrostics.  Not  one  of  the  acrostics 
extant  in  the  days  of  Cicero  and  Varro  has  come  down  to  us. 

In  two  passages  of  the  extant  Oracles  (3,  159-101,  and  8, 
G  -  8)  only  three  lines  are  allowed  to  the  aggregate  of  consec- 
utive nations.  In  two  other  passages  (4,  49-l.'>l,  and  9  (or 
11),  9-314)  more  space  is  devoted  to  the  subject.  But  a  cx*it- 
ical  examination  will  evince  that  the  major  part  of  these  pas- 
sages cannot  have  been  Erythrroan,  and  will  create  distrust 
of  such  origin  for  anything  in  them  unless  in  so  far  as  it  may 
be  substantiated  by  other  evidence. 

There  is,  however,  a  duplicate  subject  contained  in  Book  9 
(or  11),  which,  as  regards  one  or  both  of  its  parts,  reappears 
in  more  than  one  passage  of  the  extant  oracles,^*  and  which 
excited  much  attention  in  the  heathen  world.^^     One  part  of 


^^  The  comniPncement  of  Book  11  (numbered  9  by  Fiiedlieb"),  after  a 
brief  alhision  to  the  flood,  the  tower  of  Babel,  and  the  dissensions  after 
its  fall,  adds  :  — 

"  From  the  date  of  these  events  the  whole  earth  was  divided 
Among  different  nations  and  all  kinds  of  dialects, 
Whose  nuniliers  I  will  tell  and  will  name  them  in  acrostics 
Of  tlie  initial  letter,  and  will  make  their  name  obvious." 

SibyL  Orac.  9(11),  15-18. 

If  the  acconnt  of  nations,  following  upon  this  statement,  was  originally 
written  in  acrostics,  it  must  have  been  rewritten  so  as  to  elinunate  them. 

Theophilus,  in  liis  quotation  (Ad  Autol.  2,  81)  concerning  the  tower 
of  Babel,  the  confusion  of  tongues,  and  the  distribution  into  nations, 
ends  —  if  we  reject  what  lias  no  manusci-ipt  authority  —  with  that  line 
of  the  foregoing  which  ])recedes  a  mention  of  acrostics,  adding,  "and  so 
FORTH."  I  am  not  without  suspicion  that  the  last  three  words  may  liave 
been  intended  to  throw  his  heathen  readers  off  their  guard.  A  knowl- 
edge that  the  quoted  work  contained  acrostics  would  liave  destroyed  its 
authority. 

^*  Siijyl.  Orac.  3,  414-43-2;  7,  51-54  ;  9  (or  11),  122-171.  Compare 
3,  200 ;   5,  S,  !i ;  12,  S,  9. 

55  Varro  in  his  enumeration  of  the  Sibyls  connects  with  his  mention 
of  the  Erythncan  this  passage  alone  concerning  Troy  and  Ilomer;  and 
liis  statement  renders  evident  that  Ajiollodorus  had  given  prominence  to 
the  same  before  him.  Such  lieathens  as  wished  to  claim  for  a  Sibyl  of 
their  own  faith,  or  sucli  Greeks  as  wished  to  claim  for  one  of  their  own 


§  II.]  VERSES   FROM    ERYTIIR^..      PART   D.  417 

this  svibject  is  Troy's  destruction.  The  other  is  an  allegation 
that  Homer  would  tell  falsehoods.  To  avoid  presenting  the 
subject  in  too  disjointed  a  manner,  I  will  state  my  own  sup- 
position as  to  the  purport  of  the  Erythraean  passage,  and  will 
then  lay  before  the  reader  the  evidence,  direct  or  indirect,  for 
the  different  points  contained  in  it. 

1  suppose  that  the  Erythraean  writer  represented  in  the 
guise  of  a  prediction  that  Troy  would  be  destroyed  for  its 
idolatry;  that  /Eneas,  a  genuine  monotheist,  would  be  pre- 
served ;  that  he  would,  in  escaping,  act  as  became  a  true 
monotheist,  by  caring  for  an  aged  parent,  whom  he  would  bear 
on  his  shoulders,  and  for  his  child,  whom  he  would  lead  by 
the  hand ;  that  after  seven  years'  wandering  he  would  found 
a  new  dynasty  in  Italy;  that  Homer  would  copy  Sibylla's 
verse  and  phraseology  ;  and  that  he  would  tell  falsehoods  by 
representing  that  the  (heathen)  deities  aided  the  combatants 
around  Troy. 

The  prediction  that  Troy  would  be  destroyed  and  that 
Homer  would  tell  lies  is  ascribed  to  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  by 
Apollodorus,  a  citizen  of  Erytlu'ie,  who  was  cotemporary 
with  the  forgery.*'*     The  monotheism  and  seven  years'  wan- 


country,  the  renown  of  being  most  distinguished,  were  sure  to  specify 
that  their  favorite  was  the  one  who  had  predicted  touching  Troy,  or  had 
lived  prior  to  the  Trojan  war.  See  Pausanias  in  Phociris  and  Solhnis 
Polijhistor,  ch.  8,  quoted  by  Opsopoeus,  pp.  73,  127  ;  also  Suidas  toucliing 
the  Delphic  Sibyl  (in  Vol.  3  of  his  Lexicon,  on  ]).  309),  which  was  oV 
course  copied  from  some  heathen  authority ;  also  Diodonis  Siculus, 
Book  4,  near  tlie  middle  of  ch.  4.  Compare,  also,  in  note  63,  what  i.s 
said  by  Dio  ('hrysostom. 

^  A  passage  from  Varro  concerning  the  Sibyls  has  been  preserved  by 
Lactantius,  in  which  the  former  writer  says  of  the  Erythiican  :  "  Wliom 
Apollodorus  of  Kiythne  afiirnis  to  have  been  of  his  own  city  and  to  have 
prophesied  to(?)  the  Greeks  when  on  their  Avay  to  Ilium,  that  Troy  would 
perish  and  that  Homer  would  write  falsehoods."  —  Lact.  Dlv.  Inst.  1,  fi. 

1  suspect  that  Varro,  whose  voluminous  reading  implies  that  he  read 
hastilj%  may  have  mistranslated  from  Apollodorus.  The  latter  may  have 
written,  "She  foretold  that  Troy  would  be  captured  by  Greeks  in  an 
expedition  against  Ilium."  My  reason  for  suspecting  thus  much  of  an 
inaccuracy  in  Varro  is  that  traces  exi.st  in  the  oracles  and  outside  of  them 
of  an  assumed  prediction  concerning  Helen,  as  the  cause  of  tiie  war,  who 
should  arise  out  of  Sparta.  This  would  imply  that  the  prediction  assumed 
to  have  been  uttered  before  the  war  broke  out.  See  Pausanias  (a  writer 
of  the  second  century)  in  Phodcis,  on  p.  72  of  Opsopoeus.  Compare 
also  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  414  ;  9,  12.5. 

There  is^  yet  one  other  suggestion  on  which  the  reader  mav  wish  to 
exercise  his  own  judgment,  and  which,  therefore,  I  will  lay  before  him. 

18 


418  Sir.YLLIXE    BOOKS.  [NOTE    A. 

dering  of  ^^neas  are  an  inference  from  the  following  facts. 
Virgil  habitually  styles  ^Eneas  "  the  pious,"  a  designation  not 
apparently  based  on  anything  in  the  ^ncid.  This  is  the 
usual,  if  not  univei'sal,  translation,  or  mistranslation,  of  the 
words  Oeocrefiijs  and  evaeftrj?,  which,  in  Jewish  and  Christian 
Greek,  always  mean  a  nionotheist  and  practical  nionotheist.^" 
As  Virgil  copied  largely  from  the  Erythraian  verses,  it  is  more 
likely  that  the  term  originated  with  their  author,  in  whose 
plan  it  would  have  had  an  object,  than  with  Virgil,  in  whose 
work  it  is  without  one.  Compare  on  this  head  extracts  in 
foot-note  GO. 

A  similar  remark  applies  to  the  seven  years'  wandering  of 
^neas.  Virgil's  narrative  does  not  call  for,  and  can  scarcely 
be  reconciled  with,  such  a  lapse  of  time.®^  The  number  seven, 
moi'eover,  was  not  likely  to  be  adopted  without  sj^ecial  reason, 
by  a  heathen.  But  if  it  originated  with  a  Jew,  then  it  was 
precisely  the  one  most  likely  to  be  adopted  for  anything  in- 
definite. 

That  the  destruction  of  Tro}'  was  attributed  to  its  idolatry 
rests  on  the  probability  that  an  extant  passage  to  that  effect  in 


According  to  Suidas,  under  the  word  Illon,  Vol.  2,  pp.  114,  115,  the 
Eiythr.Tan  Sibyl  wa.s  in  Greece  when  the  Argonauts  -sailecL  These  wor- 
tliies  were  reputed  in  other  accounts  to  have  performed  on  their  outward 
voyage  at  Troy,  near  Erythrte,  one  of  their  notalde  exploits  (Valer.  Flac- 
cus,  2,  4.jl-.i4ii),  and  to  have  come  back  over  the  Erythnwan  sea.  This 
sea  was,  to  be  sure,  nowhere  near  Erythne,  yet  the  two  statements  raise 
the  following  question  :  Did  the  Erythraean  forger  represent  his  predic- 
tion coricerning  Troy  as  having  been  made  to  the  Argonauts  on  their 
expedition  ?  This  Avould,  according  to  the  then  popular  views,  have  placed 
the  prediction  at  a  date  about  one  or  two  generations  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  Troy,  and  somewhat  later  than  the  time  of  Saturn.  This  date 
would  not  conflict  with  the  style  of  the  Erythraean  writer,  which  is  nar- 
rative in  Saturn's  time,  and  predictive  afterwards. 

^"  See  in  this  Ajipendix,  Note  B,  §  i,  Nos.  2  and  5. 

^  In  the  xEneid,  1,  T.Vi,  T.jii,  Dido  asks  /Eneas  for  an  account  of  his 
wanderings,  remarking,  that  "already  the  seventh  summer  bears  you  a 
wanderer  in  all  lands  and  seas."  He  reached  Itah%  according  to  Yirgil, 
in  the  next  spring,  which,  as  lie  launched  in  the  beginning  of  summer 
{^■Encid,  3,  ^),  would  make  out  seven  years.  The  reader  will  find  in  the 
l*aris  edition  of  Latin  writers  by  Lemaire,  in  Excursus  2,  ap]icnded  to 
the  third  book  of  the  ^Eiieid,  an  attempt  to  .spread  chronologically  the 
events  through  seven  years.  On  I'age  4.53  the  writer  remarks  that  events 
specified  by  him  must  have  occupied  two  years,  or  else  the  number  .seveii 
cannot  be  made  out.  On  the  i)receding  page  he  treats  the  launch  and 
departure  of  /lineas,  from  "the  fields  wliere  Troy  had  stood"  {^-L'neid, 
3,  10,  11),  as  occurring  iu  the  second  year  of  his  wandering. 


§  II.]  VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR^.      PART   D.  419 

the  oracles  ^^  is  copied  or  imitated  from  the  Erythraean  verses. 
Also  on  the  coherence  of  such  an  idea  with  the  general  object 
of  those  verses.  Also,  if  the  view  be  accepted  that  ^Eneas 
was  represented  as  a  practical-monotheist,  on  the  probability 
of  an  antithesis  having  been  made  between  preservation  for 
a  mouotheist  and  destruction  for  idolaters. 

The  particulars  attending  the  escape  of  ^neas  appear  both 
in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  ^  and  in  Virgil.  They  represent  that 
consideration  for  parents  and  thoughtfulness  for  children  which 
are  inculcated  as  religious  duties  in  the  Old  Testament,  but 
which  it  would  puzzle  any  one  to  find  taught  as  part  of  the 
rehgion  in  which  Virgil  had  been  educated.  It  is  out  of  the 
question  that  in  this  instance  a  Jew  copied  and  Virgil  origi- 
nated. 

The  charge  that  Homer  would  copy  from  Sibylla  is  one 
which  it  would  seem  that  the  Erythnean  forger  must  neces- 
sarily have  made  in  order  to  avoid  having  his  work  charged 
with  plagiarism  from  that  writer.  This  alone  would  enable 
us  safely  to  infer  that  the  extant  passage  must  in  this  respect 
resemble  something  in  the  ErythrtTean  production.  This  in- 
ference, if  atfected  at  all,  is  strengthened  by  the  fact,  that 
Iieathen  writers,  of  later  date  than  the  Erythi-pean  verses, 
claim  this  peculiarity  for  a  supposed  heathen  Sibyl. ^^ 

69  "  Troy  shall  enter,  not  the  wedding,  but  the  torab,  in  whose  depth 
Her  brides  shall  weep  because  they  did  not  reeofrnize  God." 

Sibyl.  Or ac.  7,  52,53. 

^  "There  shall  be  a  chief  from  the  race  and  blood  of  Assaracus, 
A  renowned  son  of  liernes,  a  brave  and  powerful  man. 
He  shall  leave  this  fire-ravaged  [city,] 
A  fugitive  and  exile  through  war's  fearful  doings, 
Bearing  on  his  shoulders  his  aged  parent, 
Holding  his  son  by  the  hand,  a  deed  of  true  monotlieism. 

His  name  shall  be  tri-syllabic.     The  [alphabet's]  first  letter 

Will  plainly  point  out  this  noblest  man. 

And  then  he  will  build  the  powerful  citv  of  the  Latins." 

Sibyl.  Orae.  9  11),  U4-155. 

Compare  with  lines  146-149  of  the  foregoing,  Virgil's  jEiicid,  2,  707,  7ns, 
7-2:i,  7-i4.  Clement  of  Alexandria  commends  {Pceday.  3,  79)  the  wife  of 
.^neas  for  keeping  herself  veiled  even  when  escaping  from  the  burning 
city.  Such  commendation  must  have  originated  with  a  Jew  rather  than 
a  heathen,  but,  whether  with  the  author  of  the  Erythraean  verses,  we 
cannot  determine. 

6i  "  And  thereafter  there  shall  be  a  deceitful  old  author. 
He  shall  write  about  Troy,  but  not  truthfully, 


420  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

That  Homer's  falsehoods  should  have  consisted  in  his  attrib- 
uting to  heathen  deities  an  agency  in  human  events  accords, 
at  least,  so  well  with  the  design  of  the  Erythraean  writer  that 
the  existing  passage  to  that  effect  could  with  greater  probabil- 
ity be  attributed  to  him  than  be  regarded  as  a  different  appli- 
cation by  a  later  hand,  of  Homer's  mendacity.®'  Additional 
probability  is  given  to  this  view  by  the  fact,  that  Dio  Chiy- 
sostom,  who  sympathized  with  monotheists,  and  who  quoted 
Sibylla  in  support  of  morality,  found  himself  charged  with 
unbelief,  because  he  maintained  that  Homer  told  falsehoods. 
His  defence  of  himself  strengthens  yet  further  this  supposi- 
tion.*^^ 

Yet  manifestly  in  my  phraseology  and  shall  use  mj'  metre; 
For  he  will  first  unroll  mv  books  with  his  hamls." 

SibyL  Orac.  3,  419-425. 
The  unmeaning  word  ovofi-qvrj,  in  the  last  line  of  the  above,  needs  cor- 
rection. (The  context  hardly  admits  any  ditl'tn-ent  sense  from  that  indi- 
cated in  the  parallel  line  169  of  Book  11  or  9.)  In  this  latter  version 
of  tlie  passage  Homer  is  additionally  charged  with  concealing  Sibylla's 
books.     It  reads  as  follows  :  — 

"  And  thereafter  there  shall  be  a  wise  old  bard, 
Whom  all  will  style  the  wisest  among  mortals; 
By  whose  eminent  genius  the  whole  world  will  be  instructed; 
For  he  shall  write  paragraphs  with  inventive  power, 
And  lie  shall  write,  at  times,  what  is  unspeakably  beautiful. 
Clearly  by  using  my  expressions,  measure,  and  phraseology. 
For  he  will  first  unroll  my  books  and  afterwards 
Conceal  them  and  no  longer  show  them  to  mankind." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  9  (11),  163-170. 

From  heathen  writers  we  have  the  following:  "She  [the  daughter  of 
Teire.sias,  devoted  by  her  captors  to  the  oracle  at  Delphi]  wrote  in  all 
kinds  of  Oracles  [things]  distinguished  by  their  style  of  composition, 
from  whom  Homer,  they  .say,  bv  appropriating  muttli  [of  her]  phraseology, 
adorned  his  own  poetry." — Diodorus  Siculus,  4,  4.  In  a  different 
author  we  are  told,  "  Bocchus  thinks  that  the  Delphic  Siltyl  ])rophesied 
earlier  than  the  Trojan  wars,  ver}'  many  of  wliose  verses  he  shows  that 
Honirr  inserted  in  his  work."  —  Solinus  Polyhistor,  8,  quoted  in 
Opsopoeus,  p.  127. 

^'^  The  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  420-430,  say  of  Homer:  — 
"He  will  specially  deck  tlie  heroes  of  war, 
Hector,  .son  of  Priam,  and  .Achilles,  son  of  Peleus, 
And  the  others  who  mingled  in  warlike  works; 
And  will  make  the  gods  bring  tliem  assistance, — 
Writing  all  manner  of  lies  for  empty-headed  mortals." 

^3  "Some  of  the  So]>hists  treat  my  contradiction  of  Homer  as  unbelief 
[in  the  heathen  deities]  .  .  .  bnt,  concerning  tlic  deities,  all,  even  his 
flatterers,  confess,  in  brief,  that  Homer  says  nothing  tiue;  .  .  .  he  rep- 
resents the  gods  as  grieving  and  groaning  and  woun<led  and  almost  dying; 
...  he  does  not  hesitate  to  report  the  speeches  of  the  gods  in  the  dis- 


§11.]  VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR.E.      PART   E.  421 

I  have  not  attempted  in  the  foregoing  to  arrange  in  its  order 
the  history  of  nations  and  the  account  of  Troy.  I  suspect, 
however,  that  in  addition  to  the  previously  mentioned  account 
of  the  nations,  there  was  one  event  —  briefly  alluded  to  in  the 
extant  oracles^*  —  which  can  hardly  have  been  omitted  by 
the  Erythraean  w^riter.  This  was  the  invasion  of  Greece  by 
the  Gauls,  a  circumstance  the  more  likely  to  be  noticed  as  the 
Gauls  had  subsequently  passed  into  Asia  Minor  and  made 
themselves  felt  in  that  community. 

Part  E. 

This  portion  of  the  Erythrsean  document  treated  of  God's 
kingdom  ;  an  era  of  holiness  and  happiness  which  the  Deity 
woidd  prepare  for  his  true  worshippers.  Whether  a  promi- 
nent position  therein  was,  or  was  not,  assigned  to  a  Messiah, 
is  a  question  which  will  come  up  in  connection  with  a  passage 
hereafter  to  be  examined. 

Many  of  the  Jews  and  of  the  Christians  held  that  this  era 
would  last  a  thousand  years,  and  it  was,  therefore,  called  the 
MILLENNIUM.  Whether  such  a  view  appeared  in  the  Erythraean 
lines  is  a  matter  of  vuicertain  inference  from  considerations 
which  I  place  in  the  note.®^  I  also  place  there  a  view  of  Ter- 
tullian  on  a  cognate  subject,  and  one  from  Virgil,  which  the 
reader  may  wish  to  compare  in  this  connection.*'^ 

piites  which  he  attributes  to  them  with  each  other ;  and  not  only  tlie 
jiublic  ones  in  the  presence  of  all  the  gods,  hut  also  the  private  ones  of 
some  among  them,  as,  for  example,  when  Jupiter  became  incensed  against 
Juno  because  of  tlie  fraud  upon  and  defeat  of  the  Trojans."  —  Dio 
Chrysostom,  Orat.  11,  4-G  ;  Vol.  1,  pp.  311-313. 

6*  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  .500,  .510. 

65  Virgil  certainly  copies  most  of  his  Jewish  ideas  from  the  Erythrffian 
writer.  This  creates  a  presumption,  though  not  a  certainty,  that  any 
Jewish  views  in  his  works  were  Irom  the  same  source.  One  view  held  by 
Jewish  and  Christian  believers  in  a  millennium,  was  that  at  the  close  of 
its  thousand  years  the  GENERAL  resurrection  should  take  ])lace.  The  shade 
of  Anchises,  according  to  the  ^mid,  6,  748-7.51,  teaches  (cp.  p.  572) 
that  after  a  th(jusani)  years  in  the  Elysian  Fields  its  inmates,  a  mighty 
host,  are  restored  to  life.  Further,  the  seven  ages  mentioned  under 
Part  F  (Sibyl.  Orac.  2,  .321)  raises  the  question,  whether  the  author  by 
an  age  meant  one  thousand  years.  This  was  a  common  interpretation  of 
the  seven  days  or  ages. 

^'^  Tertuliian,  whose  views  were  by  no  means  always  consistent, 
speaks  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  as  lasting  a  thousand  years,  "within 
which  era  the  resurrection  of  the  saints  will  be  ended,  who  will  rise  earlier 
or  later,  according  to  their  [individual]  deserts."  —  Adv.  Marcion,  3,  n  ; 


422  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [XOTE  A. 

The  happy  era  attracted  attention  from  Christian  and 
heathen  writers.  Lactantius  makes  six  quotations  from  it, 
specifying  that  they  are  Erythraean,  though  they  do  not  all 
agree  with  the  present  Sibylline  text.  The  Cohortatio  ad 
Gra;cos  quotes  three  lines  of  it  as  from  that  "  ancient  and 
exceedingly  old  Sibyl."  A  quotation  by  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria is  perhaps  from  it.  Virgil,  in  his  fourth  Eclogue,  has 
sufficiently  ideutitied  it  as  the  source  whence  he  borrows;  and 
Horace  has  translated  portions  of  it,  and  burlesqued  others. 
Yet  with  all  these  aids  it  is  difficult  to  separate  what  is  Eryth- 
raean from  what  is  not.  Passages  which  Lactantius  quotes 
from  other  Sibyls  are  internaixed  with  the  earlier  production, 
owing,  I  svispect,  to  the  well-intentioned  efforts  of  the  Byzan- 
tine harmonist.®"  I  will  endeavor  to  select  some  passages  of 
which  there  can  be  least  doubt,  though  much  which  1  omit 
may  have  belonged  to  it. 

"  There  shall  again  be  a  sacred  race  of  practical-monotheists, 

Attentive  to  the  counsels  and  mind  of  the  Most  High, 
[JFho  shall  pay  honors  round  tJie  temple  of  the  Great  God 
With  libation  and  icith  bnrnt-offcring  and  holy  hecatombs, 
With  sacrifices  of  iceH-fed  bulls  and  iinmarred  rams, 
Offering  fat  flocks  of  firstling  sheep  and  lambs 
As  whole  burnt-offerings  in  holiness  on  the  great  aliar.l 

Righteously  accepting  the  law  of  the  Most  High,  580 

Tlie  blessed  shall  inhabit  cities  and  rich  fields, 

Being  exalted  as  prophets  by  the  Immortal, 

And  bearers  of  great  joy  to  all  niortals.^^ 

And  then  [men]  shall  bend  to  the  Great  God,  the  King 
Ininiortul,  their  bare  knee  on  the  fruitful  earth 

0pp.  p.  499  C.  TertuUiaii,  if  we  may  judge  from  his  teachings  else- 
where, did  not  intend  that  any  one  sliould  escajte  without  his  due  share 
of  PUNISHMENT.  In  Virgil  the  shade  of  Ancliises  explains  (-'£'//c/fZ,  6, 
7-i7-747)  that  souls  are  admitted  individually  from  the  abodes  of  suffer- 
ing into  the  Elysian  Fields,  the  sutferins;  being  treated  as  ])urgatorial 
rather  than  as  a  meting  out  of  justiee.  The  passage  contains  three  lines 
(740-742)  hereafter  to  be  given  undei'  Part  F,  which  are  an  imitation 
from  the  ErythrMan  composition.  TertuUian  would  have  been  unlikely 
to  teach  for  Christian  doctrine  imaginations  of  Virgil. 

^'  See  under  Additional  Remarks  in  §  v.  number  6  of  this  note  what 
is  said  conci'niing  this  Harmonist. 

''^  SibyL  Orac.  3,  .57:5-58;!.  Tliese  lines,  though  not  specially  attested, 
form  a  natural  introduction,  and  the  only  one  which  I  can  find  for  Part 
E,  if  we  except  what  is  certainly  not  Erythrrean.  After  line  583  the 
tense  changes,  which  affords  ground  for  distrusting  the  Erythraean  origin 
of  the  next  paragraph,  the  one  from  which  Clement  of  Alexandria  has 
quoted. 


§  II.]  YEKSES   FROM   ERYTHR.^i:.      PART   E.  423 

And  then  God  shall  give  great  joy  to  men  ; 

For  earth  and  trees  and  numerous  Hocks  620 

Shall  give  true  fruit  to  men, 

Of  wine  and  honey  and  white  milk, 

And  of  wheat,  the  best  of  all  things  for  mortals.® 

[^len]  shall  hynni  with  sweet  voices.  715 

Come,  let  us  bow  to  the  earth,  let  us  invoke 

The  Iiumortul  King,  the  Great  God,  the  Most  High. 

[Let  us  send  to  his  temple,  for  he  is  the  only  Fotentate.l 

Let  us  consider  the  law  of  God,  the  Most  High, 

Which  is  the  most  just  of  all  things  on  earth.  720 

We  had  wandered  from  the  path  of  the  Immortal  ; 

With  senseless  minds  we  worshipped  hand-made  works 

Of  carved  idols  and  of  dead  men."^ 

But  wretched  Greece,'""  curb  thy  pride, 

And  serve  the  Great  God,  that  thou  mayst  partake  of  these  things. 

For  earth,  mother  of  all,  shall  give  moi'tals  abundantly 

The  excellent  fruit  of  wheat,  wine,  and  olive  ; 

Also  sweet  honey  from  heaven,  a  delightful  drink  ;  745 

Trees  also,  the  fruit  of  the  fig  {'.)  and  fat  flocks, 

And  cattle  and  choicest  lambs,  and  tender  kids. 

Fountains  shall  How  of  sweet  white  milk. 

Cities  and  fat  fields  shall  be  filled  with  good  things. 

There  shall  be  no  sword  on  the  earth,  nor  noise  of  battle.  750 

[The  groaning  earth  shall  not  quake^ 

Nor  war,  nor  yet  drought  upon  the  earth ; 

Nor  famine,  nor  fruit-destroying  hail, 

But  great  peace  over  the  whole  earth  ; 

And  king  shall  befriend  king  till  the  end  of  the  age.  755 

A  common  law  over  the  whole  earth 

Shall  God  in  the  starry  heavens  give  to  men, 

Touching  whatever  is  done  by  weak  mortals. 

For  he  alone  is  God,  and  there  is  no  other. 

And  he  will  burn  with  fire  the  intractable  ferocity  of  men.  760 

And  then  he  will  establish  an  eternal  kingdom 
Over  men  ;  a  holy  law  which  he  once  gave 
To  all  practical-monotheists  ;  he  promised  to  open  earth, 
And  universe  ;  gates  of  the  blessed,  and  all  joys  ; 

^^  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  (;i(i-(:-2.!.  Line  618  is  omitted  as  an  interpolation. 
Lactaiitius  i|uot('S  619  -623  as  Erytlu-iean. 

™  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  'in-ir.i.  Tlie  Cohortatio  ad  Grscos  quotes  lines 
721  -72iS  as  Erytlinxian.     As  such  also  line  722  is  quoted  by  Lactaiitius. 

''''*  Greece  is  perhaps  used  for  heathendom  in  general.  Compare  page 
151,  note  26. 


424  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

[Promised]  Immortal  understanding  and  perpetual  rejoicing."       770 

72 

And  all  paths  of  the  plain,  and  rough  hills 

And  lofty  mountains,  and  raging  waves  of  the  sea, 

Shall  be  easy  to  travel  and  to  sail  over  in  those  days  ; 

"1  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  73-2,  740,  743-7G0,  760-770.  I  have  oiiiitted  lines 
741,  7i-,  which,  ill  an  altered  slia]ie,  are  quoted  vvitli  line  783  by  Lactantius, 
as  belonging  to  the  judgineut,  the  \y<ivt  designated  by  F.  This  passage  and 
also  the  last  live  lines  (787-790,  793)  of  the  quotation  wliieli  follows  it, 
were  in  the  mind  of  Horace  when  he  wrote  his  sixteenth  Epode.  That 
Epode,  if  we  may  judge  from  its  allusion  to  the  civil  wars,  was  written 
during  or  after  the  final  struggle  of  Augustus  and  Antony ;  probably  in 
B.  c.  30  or  29.  At  the  same  date  the  Jews  were  fostering  at  Ivonie  appre- 
hensions of  impending  calamity,  as  we  may  reasonably  infer  from  the 
Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  4(;-r)i»,  already  quoted  on  pp.  120,  121.  Tlie  lines  of 
Horace,  intended  as  a  .satire  on  the  prevailing  state  of  feeling,  imitated 
and  burlesqued  the  above.  He  alludes  to  the  anticipation,  that  Rome, 
which  its  successive  enemies  had  not  compiered,  should  perish  by  its  own 
hand,  and  proposes  that  those  of  its  inhabitants  who  had  nerve  should 
leave  it,  adding  :  — 

"First  let  us  swear  ...  to  direct  our  sails  homeward  when  .  .  .  tigers 
may  deliglit  to  couple  with  hinds  (788),  .  .  .  nor  the  simple  herds  may 
dread  the  brindled  lions  (790),  .  .  .  let  us  seek  the  ha] ipy  plains  .  .  . 
where  the  untitled  land  yearly  produces  grain,  and  the  uniiiuned  vine- 
yard punctually  flourishes  [compare  note  83],  and  where  the  branch  of 
the  never-failing  olive  blossoms  forth,  and  the  lig  adorns  its  native  tree 
(743,  744),  honey  distils  from  the  hollow  oaks  (745,  746).  The  light  water 
bounds  down  from  the  high  mountains  with  a  murmuring  pace.  There 
the  she-goats  come  to  the  milk-pails  of  their  own  accord,  and  the  friendly 
flock  return  with  their  udders  distended  (748)  ;  nor  does  the  bear  growl 
about  the  sheepfold  (789),  nor  does  the  rising  ground  swell  with  vipers 
(793),  .  .  .  nor  is  the  fertile  seed  burned  by  a  dry  glebe  (750),  .  .  .  no 
contagious  distempers  hurt  the  flocks"  (753). — Horace,  ^yw^/e  16, 
lines  25,  26,  31,  33,  42  -  53,  57,  Bohn's  trans.  In  the  (luotation  the  num- 
bers designate  the  lines  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles  in  15ook  3,  wliirh  seem  to 
have  suggested  the  words  of  Horace.  In  some  the  analogy  is  decided  ;  in 
others  it  is  less  .so. 

'■•'  The  five  following  lines  (771  -  775)  are  omitted  above.  They  are 
corrupted,  or  interpolated,  or  both.  The  latter  two  of  lliem  are  (pioted 
by  Lactantius  (JJiv.  Inst.  4,  (;)  as  Erythra3an,  so  that  any  interpolation 
must  have  taken  place  before  his  time  :  — 

"  And  from  every  land  [men]  sliall  brinjr  frankincense  and  {rifts 
To  tlie  lion«es'(liou<cli()l(ls  .■')  of  the  Great  God.  nor  shall  there  be 
Another  Ikiuso  (household  V)  for  future  men  to  iiKpiire  at 
Save  the  one  winch  God  permitted  faithful  men  to  enrich. 
For  mortals  call  it  the  son  of  the  Great  God." 

In  what  is  left  of  the  iMythiican  verses  the  only  recommendations  of 
ritual  law  and  otferinf^s  interrupt  the  sense  instead  of  being  necessary  to 
it.  I  suspect  that  Jews  who,  honestly  or  dishonestly,  collected  gifts  for 
the  temple,  may  at  an  early  date  have  inter])olated  what  accorded  with 
their  views,  or  was  intended  to  serve  their  inteiest.s. 


§11.] 


VERSES   FKOM   ERYTHR.^.      PART   E.  425 


For  perfect  peace  shall  come  on  the  land  of  the  good, 
And  the  prophets  of  the  Great  God  shall  do  away  the  sword  ;       780 
For  they  shall  be  judges  among  mortals,"  and  kings  shall  be  just, 
And  the  wealthy  among  men  shall  be  just. 

Wolves  shall  associate  with  lambs  on  the  mountains. 

Lynxes  shall  eat  grass  with  the  stags, 

And  bears  with  calves,  among  all  mortals. 

The  carnivorous  lion  shall  eat  straw  in  the  manger,  790 

And  dragons  nestle  with  unweaned  children."  '* 

'*  The  position  here  assigned  to  the  prophets  is  that  which  afterwards 
(as  early  probably  as  B.  C.  63)  was,  in  productions  under  the  name  of 
Sibylla,  assigned  to  the  Messiah.  It  is  noteworthy,  that  neither  Lactau- 
tius,  nor  any  other  writer,  <|uotes  from  the  Erythnean  Sibyl  any  predic- 
tion of  a  Messiah.  Could  Christians  have  found  such  a  passage,  they 
would  ]irob:ibly  have  interpreted  it  as  an  allusion  to  Jesus. 

"■'  Sibyl,  brae.  3,  770-78-2,  787-790,  79.3.  The  last  five  lines  are  trans- 
lated as  they  stand  in  Lactantius  7,  24.  Virgil,  as  already  remarked  in 
note  51,  borrows,  in  his  fourth  Eclogue,  from  this  jjortion  and  from  Part  C. 
The  composition  of  this  Eclogue  is  placed  by  Smith's  Dictionary  in  the 
year  B.C.  40,  and  its  hopeful  tone  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the  despondent 
feelings  of  the  Komans,  which  Horace,  ten  years  later,  satirized  in  his 
sixteenth  Epode.     Virgil's  words  are  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  last  age  of  Cumoean  song  now  comes; 
A  mighty  order  of  ages  is  born  anew. 

Both  the  [prophetic]  Virgin  and  Saturnian  kingdoms  now  return. 
Now  a  new  progeny  is  let  down  from  the  lofty  heavens, 
Favor,  cliaste  Lucina,  the  boy  soon  to  be  born. 
In  whom  the  b'on  age  shall  cease, 
And  the  Golden  one  arise  in  the  whole  world. 

The  kid  shall  bring  home  milk-distended  udders; 

Nor  shall  the  herds  fear  the  great  lions; 

Cradles  shall  pour  forth  grateful  flowers. 

The  serpent  shall  perish,  and  the  treacherous  poisonous  herb. 

And  the  ruddy  grape  shall  hang  from  uncultivated  vines. 
And  rigid  oaks  shall  distil  lirjuid  honey. 

.  .  .  Every  region  shall  bear  all  things. 

The  ground  shall  not  be  subject  to  the  harrow,  nor  the  vine  to  the  pruning- 
hook." 

Virgil,  Edog.  4,  4  -  10,  21-  24,  29,  30,  39,  40.     (Compare  note  83.) 

^  The  alleged  Cumrean  production  perished  in  the  Capitol,  b.  c.  83.  Tiie 
Erythraean  verses  are  the  only  other  composition  to  which,  with  aid  of  the 
passage  ascribed  to  Aristotle,  Virgil's  opening  line  can  be  a])plied.  The 
term  "  Virgin,"  which  appears  in  line  6  of  the  above,  is  used  by  Virgil  in 
the  JEncid  (7,  45,  104,  8is,  .Vi(i)  to  designate  Sibylla,  in  which  sense  it  is 
doubtless  used  here.  A  golden  age,  and  also  a  sixth  age,  are  mentioned 
in  a  mutilated  passage  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles  (1,  284)  which  stands  con- 
nected, at  least,  with  an  Ery tinman  fragment.  (Compare,  touching  these 
ages,  the  remarks  in  note  51.) 


426  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

Among  the  fragments  pertaining  to  God's  kingdom  appear 
some  lines  of  a  moral  rather  than  doctrinal  cast,  wliich  I 
place  in  the  note,'^  being  unable  to  determine  their  position. 
Probably  they  did  not  form  a  distinct  head,  but  belonged  to 
some  one  of  tlie  divisions  under  wliich  I  have  classed  the 
Erythra3au  verses. 

Part  F. 

According  to  Lactantius,  one  portion  of  the  Ei-ythrscan 
Sibyl  must  have  treated  upon  the  judgment.'®  A  passage  of 
that  natvu'e  still  extant  seems  too  long  to  have  belonged  to 
any  among  the  imitations  of  tlie  Erytliraean  verses.  The  re- 
marks, moreover,  of  two  Cliristian  writers  hardly  admit  of 
reconciliation  unless  we  suppose  that  this  belongs  to  the 
Erythraean  document.  According  to  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
no  Sibjdline  writer  can,  prior  to  his  time,  have  written  con- 
cerning Christ.""  According  to  the  Cohortatio  ad  Grsecos,  the 
Erythraean  Sibyl  spoke  plainly  concerning  Christ's  second 
coming,"^  —  a   somewhat    remarkable    affirmation    when    con- 

''^  These  lines  are  762  -  765  of  Book  3.  Lactantius  (Dc  Ira,  22) 
speaks  of  tlieiii  thus  :  The  Erythrajau  Sibyl  "in  another  place  enumerat- 
ing the  crimes  at  which  God  is  especially  indignant,  introduces  these 
[things]":  — 

Fly  lawless  robbery,  serve  the  liv'ng  God. 

Keep  yourselves  from  adultery  and  unnatural  lust. 

Nurture  your  own  children;  do  not  murder  them; 

For  the  Immortal  is  angry  at  whoever  sins  thus. 

'^  "After  these  things  the  Underworld  will  he  opened  and  the  dead 
will  rise  :  touching  whom  that  king  and  deity  will  hold  a  gi-eat  judgment, 
to  whom  the  Supreme  Father  will  give  an  unlimited  power  of  judging 
and  reigning,  conceiiiing  which  judgment  and  reign  the  following  is 
found  in  the  Erythrfean  Sihyl :  — 

"When  the  destined  term  of  mortals  shall  arrive 
And  the  ju<la:'nent  of  the  Immortal  God  shall  come, 
There  shnll  mine  upon  men  ti  trrivU  jnilcment  and  irovernment." 
Lactantius,  7,  20.     Compare  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  741,  742,  783. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Lactantius  quotes  nothing  concerning  Christ  as  the 
judge. 

"■^  "  Attend  to  Sibylla,  how  she  makes  manifest  one  God  and  the  things 
hereafter  to  take  place  ;  and  taking  Hysta.spes,  read,  and  yon  will  find, 
written  much  more  obviously  and  plainly,  the  Son  of  God."  —  Clem,  of 
Alex.  S/rom.  6,  43;  0})]).  ])\).  761,  762.' 

78  " 'Pi-nst  that  most  ancient  and  exceedingly  old  Sibyl,  whose  books 
are  jjreserved  in  the  whole  worhl,  .  .  .  when  she  jire-annotuices  cle.vki.y 
and  MANrF?:sTi,Y  coTicerning  that  coming  of  our  S:\viour  Jesus  Christ, 
which  is  hereafter  to  occur,  and  conceniinL,'  all  tliiiiu's  which  are  hereafter 
to  take  place  through  him."  —  Cohortatio  ad  Greecos,  3S. 


§  11.]  VERSES   FROM  ERYTHR.E.      PART   F.  427 

nected  with  the  fact  that  the  Cohortatio  does  not  quote  this 
very  plain  statement.  If  we  suppose  that  the  Sibylline  extract, 
to  be  quoted  aftei*  the  next  paragraph,  belonged  to  the  Eryth- 
rgean  verses,  and  that  the  writer  of  the  Cohortatio  had  seen 
some  copy  in  which  the  intei'polatiou  concerning  Christ  ex- 
isted, then  we  can  understand  how  the  two  statements  should 
be  made  concei-ning  the  same  document ;  and  we  can  also 
comprehend  why  the  author  of  the  Cohortatio  should  have 
forborne  a  quotation,  since  the  connection  would  have  be- 
ti'ayed  to  thinking  persons  the  spuriousness  of  the  passage. 

There  is  yet  another  consideration,  which,  so  far  as  it  has 
weight,  favors  the  Erythra3an  origin  of  the  lines  under  con- 
sideration. Virgil  in  the  sixth  book  of  his  J^neid  represents 
Sibylla  as  guiding  ^Eneas  through  the  abodes  of  suffering  and 
bliss  for  the  departed.  The  idea  that  she  had  any  acquaint- 
ance with  these  abodes  could  not  have  been  derived  from 
extant  remains  of  the  patrician  forgery,  and  must  have  origi- 
nated, therefore,  with  the  Erythraean  verses,  or  with  some 
imitation  of  them.  There  can  scarcely  be  a  doubt  that  the 
passage  in  question  was  known  to  Virgil,  since  at  least  three 
lines  of  it,  as  will  hereafter  be  seen,  reappear  in  the  /Eneid. 
Moreover,  a  presumption,  as  remarked  in  note  65,  exists,  that 
any  Jewish  views  in  Virgil  are  from  the  Erythrtean  verses. 
Any  argument,  therefore,  from  this  presumption  favors  the 
Erythrrean  origin  of  the  lines  here  translated.  They  are 
preceded  by  a  passage  which  I  place  in  the  note,'^^  under  the 
supposition  that  it  is  from  another  hand. 

'^  A  possibly  spurious  passage  in  tlie  text  mentions  Moses  as  clothed 
in  flesh.  He,  like  Elijah,  was  by  some  of  the  Jews  regarded  as  having 
been  bodily  translated.  The  statement,  therefore,  does  not  necessaiily 
imply  a  physical  resurrection  :  a  doctrine  which  Christian  believers  in 
it  never  quote  from  the  Erythrtean  Sibyl,  nor,  however  we  may  under- 
stand it,  does  the  text  give  any  pkominence  to  such  a  doctrine.  Tlie 
following  lines  were  probably  intended  to  remedy  the  omission  :  — 

"  But  when  the  angels  of  God,  the  Immortal  and  Imperishable, 
Shall  come, —  Michael,  Gabriel,  Raphael,  and  Uriel, — 
They,  having  knowledpe  of  every  man's  wicked  deeds 
Formerly  done,  shall  brinp;  all  souls  from  the  rayless  darkness 
To  judgment  at  the  tribunal  of  God, 

The  Immortal  and  Great.     For  One  only  is  '  Imperishable.' 
He  is  the  All-ruler,  who  will  be  the  .Judge  of  mortals. 
Then  shall  the  Heavenly  God  give  to  the  tenants  of  the  Underworld 
Life,  spirit,  and  speech ;  bones  fitted 
To  all  the  joints,  flesh  to  all  the  bodies. 
Nerves  to  the  nervous  system  and  blood  to  all  the  veins ; 
The  skin  also,  and  the  former  hair  to  the  crown. 


428  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [XOTE   A. 

"  Then  shall  the  mighty  angel,  Uriel,  break  and  throAV  do\\Ti 
The  massive  fastenings  of  haul,  unbroken  adamant 
Of  the  Underworld-gates,  uuforged  [by  human  hand.]  230 

And  shall  bring  to  judgment  full  of  lamentations  all  shades 
Of  Idols,  esjjecially  of  the  ancient  Titans 
And  of  the  Giants,  and  of  as  many  as  the  flood  overwhelmed 
And  those  whom  the  waves  destroyed  in  the  sea 
Or  whom  beasts  or  reptiles  or  fowls  have  devoured  :  235 

All  these  he  will  call  to  the  tribunal. 

And  again,  those  whom  the  flesh-destroying  tire  has  destroyed,*' 
Even  tliese  will  he  wake  and  place  before  God's  tribunal. 

But  when  he  shall  raise  the  dead,  overcoming  the  Fates, 
And  Sabaoth  Adonai,  the  lofty  thunderer,  shall  sit  240 

On  his  heavenly  throne  and  establish  the  massive  pillar  [of  punish- 
ment], 
[Tliere  shall  come  in  a  cloud  to  the  ImiKrishahle  —  himself  also  imper- 
ishable, 
Christ  in  glory  with  his  blameless  angels 
And  shall  sit  on  a  (jreat  right-hand  throne,  and  judge 
The  lives  of  true,  and  ways  of  false,  monotheists].  245 

Moses,  too,  shall  come,  the  great  friend  of  the  Most  High, 
Clothed  in  flesh,  and  the  great  Abrahanx  shall  come, 
Isaac  find  Jacol),  Daniel  and  Elijah, 
Habakkuk  and  Jonas  and  those  whom  the  Hebrews  slew. 

And  all  the  Hebrews  since  Jeremiah  will  he  collect"  250 


The  immortally  constituted,  breathing,  moving 
Bodies  of  mortals  shall  rise  in  one  dav." 

SibyLOrac.  2,  214-227. 

For  Qeou  6.<P6ltoi  dyyeXryjpes,  in  the  first  line,  read  GeoO  a.<j>9LTo'i.  d77e\- 
rrjpes.     The  former  reading  contradicts  line  219. 

*'  Virgil's  conception  of  punishments  seems  to  have  been  suggested 
by  the  three  above-mentioned  forms  of  destruction  :  "  Some  are  hung 
suspended  before  the  empty  winds  [a  paraphrase  of  the  idea,  exposed 
to  beasts  and  fowls],  from  others  the  infection  of  wickedness  is  washed 
out  beneath  the  whirl  pool's  depth,  or  is  burnt  out  with  lire."  —  ^ncid, 
6,  740-74J.  After  these  lines  some  of  Virgil's  Jewish  theology  be- 
comes confused.  The  few  inmates  of  Elysium  (line  744)  are  a  mighty 
multitude  (749).  We  (743)  and  they  (750)  seem  identified.  The  follow- 
ing translation,  suggested  by  Sibyl.  Orae.  2,  ;53l  -3:i9,  if  permissible,  would 
remove  the  latter  difiiculty  and  the  seeming  identification  of  Elysium 
with  Purgatory  :  "  Each  of  us  —  from  the  date  when  we  enter  Elysium, 
exinde  [ex  quo']  .  .  .  mittiynur  Elysium,  and  when,  few  in  number,  we 
reach  its  joyful  fields  —  suffers  as  regards  the  manes  of  liis  relatives,  suos 
manes  for  ma.ncs  .vwriim,  until  a  long  day,  with  its  comjilete  circuit  of 
time,  erases  the  hardened  stain."  — jEncid,  6,  74;! -"40.  The  use  of  the 
term  God  in  line  749  resembles  monotheistic  phraseology  rather  than  that 
of  heathenism. 

"1  'OX^a-ffet  in  the  text  has  no  meaning  whiidi  the  context  will  bear. 
Perhaps  we  should  read  X^^et,  ar-qaeL,  or  KaXiaaei. 


§  II.]  VERSES    FROM    ERYTHR^E.      PART    F.  429 

For  judgment  at  the  Triljunal,  that  they  may  receive  suitable  treat- 
ment 

And  may  pay  for  what  each  has  done  in  his  mortal  life. 

And  then  all  shall  pass  through  a  Haniing  river 

Of  quenchless  fire,  and  the  just  shall  all  be  saved. 

But  the  Godless  shall  suffer  destruction  therein  ages  long  255 

As  many  as  formerly  did  wickedly 

Or  committed  murder,  and  all  who  were  accomplices. 

The  false  and  thievish  ;  the  secretly  fiendish  destroyers  of  households 

Who  lurk  at  the  feasts  and  steal  to  the  nuptial  couch,  heaping  up 
shamelessness ; 

The  fiendish  and  overbearing,  whether  LAW-less  and  Idolaters,      260 

Or  those  who  deserted  the  great  immortal  Gud 

And  BECAME  blasphemers,  and  plunderers  of  ti'ue  monotheists, 

Enemies  of  the  faith  and  destroyers  of  holy  men  ; 

Or  the  deceitful  and  shamelessly  two-faced 

Elders  and  eminent  deacons  who  respect  the  high.  265 

They  decide  with  deference  [to  them]  doing  unjustly  to  others, 

[Judicial]  deceivers  trusting  to,  and  misled  by,  rumors. 

More  destructive  than  panthers  and  wolves  —  the  worst  of  men. 
Also  the  proud  and  the  usurers. 

Who  heap  usury  on  usury  at  home  270 

And  destroy  the  orphans  and  the  widows. 

Or  such  as  give  of  their  unjust  gains 

To  widows  and  orphans.     Or  such  as  in  giving  of  their  own  sub- 
stance, 

Accompanj'  it  with  reproaches.     And  those  who  desert  their  parents 

In  old  age,  repaying  them  either  nothing,  or  insufficiently  275 

For  their  bringing  up.     Also  the  disobedient, 

And  such  as  use  violent  language  to  their  parents, 

And  those  who  having  received  a  pledge  deny  it. 

Servants,  too,  that  have  wronged  their  masters ; 

And  again,  those  who  pollute  themselves  by  debauchery,  280 

Or  such  as  have  loosed  a  virgin's  girdle 

For  secret  intercourse.     Women,  too,  who  procure  abortion, 

And  men  who  wickedly  throw  away  their  offspring. 

Sorcerers  and  sorceresses.     The  anger  of  the  Heavenly 

And  incorruptible  God  shall  fasten  these  and  those  285 

To  his  pillar  where,  all  around, 

Flows  an  inexhaustible  river  of  fire.     All  alike 

Shall  the  angels  of  the  immortal  and  eternal  God 

Punish  terribly  with  flaming  scourges  and  fiery  chains. 

Binding  them  down  witli  unbreakable  bonds.  290 

Then  during  the  pitch  darkness  of  night 

They  cast  them  to  the  many  and  fearful 

Sul )-Tartarean  Beasts  in  Gehenna,  where  is  measureless  darkness. 

But,  when  they  shall  have  inflicted  many  punishments 

On  all  who  had  an  evil  heart,  thereafter  295 

A  fiery  whirlpool  from  the  great  river  shall  carry  them  around. 


430  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [XOTE   A. 

Because  they  bii'iied  themselves  -with  wicked  works. 

Then  from  the  distance  shall  their  lamentation  arise  on  every  hand 

Over  their  miserable  fate  ;  both  from  fathers  and  children, 

From  mothers  and  their  infant  sucklings.  300 

There  shall  be  no  sufficiency  to  their  tears,  nor  shall 

The  compassionate  voice  of  sympathizers  be  anywhere  heard  ; 

But  they  shall  howl,  kept  in  the  black  darkness 

Below  Tartai'us.     In  these  accursed  localities 

They  shall  pay  threefold  the  evil  they  have  perpetrated.  305 

Backed  by  the  sea  of  fire  they  shall  gnash  with  their  teeth, 

Consumed  by  thirst  and  by  their  flaming  torment. 

They  shall  call  it  a  blessing  to  die,  but  shall  not  be  able. 

Neither  death  nor  night  shall  any  longer  bring  them  rest. 

They  shall  vainly  pour  out  supplications  to  God  on  high  3io 

AVho  will  turn  his  face  unmistakably  from  them  ; 

For  he  gave  seven  ages  as  time  of  repentance 

To  mankind,  misled  by  an  unpolluted  vii-gin.*^ 

But  the  others  who  busied  themselves  with  justice  and  good  works. 
With  true  monotheism  and  just  tlioughts,  315 

The  angels  will  bear  through  the  flaming  river 
And  bring  them  to  Light  and  a  Life  without  care, 
Where  is  the  inmiortal  path  of  the  Great  God, 
And  three  fountains  of  wine,  honey,  and  milk  ; 
And  the  land  belongs  equally  to  all  with  no  walls  nor  enclosures,  320 
And  without  divisions.     It  bears  su])erfluous  fruits  without  labor.*^ 
Life  is  in  common,  and  wealth  undivided  ; 
For  neither  poor  man  nor  rich  man  will  l)e  there  ; 
Neither  tyrant  nor  bondsman  ;  nor  yet  great  man  nor  small  ; 
Nor  king  nor  rulers  ;  Imt  all  will  be  alike.  325 

No  one  will  there  say,  "  Nigiit  has  come,"  or,  "morning  "  ; 
Nor,  "It  happened  yesterday."     There  shall  not  be  nudtiplied  daj's 

of  care  ; 
Nor  spring  nor  summer  ;  nor  winter  nor  closing  autumn  ; 
Nor  marriage  nor  death  ;  nor  buying  nor  selling  ; 
Nor  sunset  nor  sunrise  ;  for  [God]  will  make  one  long  day.^*         330 

^2  That  is,  by  the  virgin  Eve.  Sep  on  tliis  sidiject  Belief  of  the  First 
Three  Centuries  concerning  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Undcricorld,  Note  H 
of  the  Appendix. 

"3  Compare  with  this  the  words  of  Horace  (Epodc  16,  43,  4;)  (juoted  on 
p.  424,  and  of  Virgil  {Eclogue,  4,  ?,'.\  40)  quoted  on  p.  425. 

***  The  ahove  assumes  for  dwelh-rs  on  earth  in  tlie  hajipy  era  a  source 
of  ilhunination  (compare  Kov.  21,  •-';)  different  from  that  of  our  sun. 
Nine  Hni's  subsequently  the  Erythrican  writer  gives  to  tlie  Elysian  Plain 
a  position  (Sil)yl.  Orac.  2,  :iis,  :!:j: )  on  the  Acherusian  lake,  tluit  is,  in 
tlie  underworld.  Any  subterranean  locality  for  it  contradieted  he.'ithen 
views,  and  must  have  been  suggested  by  Jewish  ideas  of  Abiaham's 
bosom.  Virgil  borrows  from  Judaism  (see  note  6,'5)  its  "thousand 
j'ears  "  of  l)liss,  but  blends  the  two  conceptions  above  mentioned,  tluis 
confusing  matters  above  ground  with  those  l)elow.  He  ])laces  the  Ely- 
sian Fields  {^-Encid,  6,  g:j8-G4J)  in  the  underworld,  and  gives  them  a 


§n.] 


VERSES   FROI\I   ERYTHR.^.      PART   G.  431 


To  these  —  genuine  monotheists  —  will  the  universal  Ruler, 
The  Imperishable  God,  grant  another  privilege. 
,  When  they  ask  the  Imperishable  God  to  save  mortals 
From  the  flaming  fire  and  enduring  lamentations,  he  will  grant, 

and  do  it. 
Gathering,  he  will  place  them  elsewhere,  with  no  remnant  of  l>urn  335 
From  the  raging  tire,  and  will  send  them  for  his  people's  sake 
To  another  and  enduring  life,  to  the  Immortals, 
To  the  Elysian  Plain,  Aviiere  are  the  broad  waters 
Of  the  ever-flowing,  deep-bosomed  Acherusian  lake. 

Alas,  wretched  me  !  what  shall  be  my  fate  in  that  day  340 

Because  of  my  excessive  perverseness 

Before  I  was  old  enough  to  marry  or  to  have  understanding  1 
Even  in  the  apartments  of  my  wealthy  husband 
I  shut  out  the  needy.     I  knowingly  did  wrong. 
But,  0  Preserver,  save  me  from  my  j  ust  torments,  345 

Me,  shameless,  who  committed  improprieties. 

And  now  I  beseech  thee  for  a  little  rest  from  my  song, 
Holy  Manna-giver,  King  of  the  great  kingdom."  ^' 

Part  G. 

This  concluding  part  is  cattestecl  by  two  quotations  which 
Lactantius  has  made  from  it ;  by  <i  joint  reference  of  Varro  and 
Lactantius  to  a  passage  in  it  ■,^^  and   by  the  apparent  conne(i- 

sun  and  stars  of  their  own  ;  thereby,  absurdly  enough,  putting  a  solar 
and  stellar  system  inside  of  the  earth.  The  passage,  if  isolated,  might 
bear  a  different  interpretation,,  but  lines  680,  762,  of  the  same  book,  I'or- 
bid  it. 

TertuUian  in  one  passage  {Apol.  47)  located  Paradise  south  of  the 
Torrid  Zone.  This  may  have  been  an  awkward  effort  by  himself,  or  by 
some  earlier  writer,  Jew  or  Christian,  to  explain  the  perennial  day. 
Valerius  Flaccus  {Argonaut.  1,  S44)  mentions  the  fields  [Etysian  ?] 
where  sunshine  lasts  the  whole  year.  The  author's  remarks  in  Under- 
world Mission,  3d  edit.  pp.  97,  164,  need  to  be  conformed  to  the  present 
note. 

«^  Sibyl.  Orac.  2  2-28-348.  The  idea  of  sjnupathy  for  suffering 
brethren  (lines  .333,  334),  manifested  by  those  in  bliss,  would  compare 
favorably  with  a  conception  which  has  passed  for  Christian  ;  namely,  that 
"  the  sight  of  hell  torments  will  exalt  the  happiness  of  the  saints."  The 
reader  should,  in  connection  with  this  passage,  recur  to  the  latter  part  of 
note  80. 

^^  Lactantius  quotes  from  Varro  a  passage  concerning  ten  Sibyls, 
concluding  as  follows  :  "  The  verses  of  all  these  Sibyls  are  circulated  and 
owned  [by  private  individuals]  except  those  of  the  Cumjean,  Avhose  books 
are  by  Romans  forbidden  to  the  public,  nor  do  they  deem  their  inspection 
lawful  by  any  except  the  Quindecemvirs.  There  are  individual  books  of 
each  of  these  which,  because  inscribed  with  the  name  of  Sihylla.  are  sup- 
posed to  belong  to  one  person.  They  are,  moreover,  confounded  (?),  nor 
can  each  one's  be  distinguished  and  assigned  to  her,  except  that  of  the 


432  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

tion  between  another  passage  and  Part  B.  The  opening  of  it 
is  evidently  dependent  on  some  omitted  portion  which  pre- 
ceded. Two  Hnes,  moreover,  are  said  to  be  wanting  where 
periods  have  been  substituted, 

"  Tliese  things  to  you  when  leaving,  inspired  with  divine  frenzy, 
The  long  walls  of  Assyria's  Babylon,  sent  as  a  fire  into  Greece, 
Proclaiming  to  all  mortals  the  divine  threats.  810 

So  that  I  proclaim  Divine  secrets  to  mortals. 

And  in  Greece  mortals  will  call  me  a  foreigner, 

Born  at  ERYTHRiE,  and  shameless.     Some  will  pronounce 

Me,  Sibylla,  a  crazy  impostor,  born  of  Circe,  my  mother, 

And  her  near  relative,  my  father.  But  when  all  things  shall  take 
place,  815 

Then  you  will  remember  me,  and  no  one  will  longer 

Pronounce  as  mad  the  Great  God's  prophetess. 

Did  he  not  show  me  what  occurred  to  my  forefathers? 

The  earliest  events  God  enumerated  to  me  ; 

And  all  things  subsequent  he  put  into  my  mind  ;  820 

So  that  I  proclaim  the  future  and  the  past 

And  tell  them  to  mortals.     For  when  the  world  was  whelmed 

With  waters,  and  but  one  approved  man  was  left 

Sailing  in  his  hewn-wood  house  on  the  waters, 

With  beasts  and  fowls,  that  the  world  might  be  filled  again,      825 

I  was  his  daughter-in-law,*^  and  his  relative  ; 

To  whom  the  earliest  events  happened  and  all  the  last  were  un- 
folded. 

So  that  by  my  mouth  all  these  truths  should  be  uttered."  "^ 

Ei*}'thra3an  who  inserted  her  name  in  her  song,  and  foretold  that  she  would 
be  called  Erytln-fean,  wiien  in  reality  she  came  from  Babylon."  —  Varro, 
quoted  in  Lactantius,  1,  fi.  That  these  concluding  remarks  are  from 
Varro  and  not  from  Lactantius  is  shown  by  the  following  considerations. 
In  Varro's  time  the  laws  were  doubtless  unrepealed  which  forbade  un- 
authorized persons  to  examine  the  so-called  Books  of  the  Cumaean  Sibyl. 
Against  the  circulation  of  the  other  Sibylline  writings  no  law  liad  yet 
been  enacted.  In  the  days  of  Lactantius,  on  the  contraiy,  all  Sibylline 
works  stood  legally  on  the  same  footing,  being  forbidden  to  the  peo])le  by 
unrepealed  though  unexecuted  laws.  Again,  the  statement  that  all  Sibyl- 
line writings  were  su])posed  to  come  i'rom  one  person  liad,  doubtless,  a 
good  deal  of  truth  in  Varro's  time,  and  little  or  none  in  that  of  Lactantius. 
If  any  one  should  regard  the  closing  words  of  the  passage  as  fi'Oin  Lactan- 
tius, it  would  then  imply  that  in  his  day  the  passage  in  our  text  was  that 
which  made  known  the  Sibyl's  name. 

"^  The  word  translated  daughtcr-indaw  means  commonly  a  bride.  Its 
signiliration  hmv  is  <leterniined  by  its  use  in  Part  B.     Com))ar('  note  40. 

**  Sibyl.  Orac.  3,  sos  -  82«.  Lactantius,  whose  text  1  follow,  has 
quoted  812  and  814-817  in  h\s  lit^/i/ufrs,  1,  n,  and  4,  15.  The  state- 
ment of  what  the  Sibyl  had  accomiili.shed  should  be  coniparcd  with  what 
she  undertook,  as  stated  in  note  41.  Line  821  is  borrowed  from  the 
Iliad,  1,  70. 


§  II.]  VERSES   FROM   ERYTHR^.      PART   G.  433 

The  distinguished  reception  M'hich  the  Romans  accorded  to 
the  Erythraean  composition  prompted  more  than  one  subse- 
quent effusion  under  the  name  of  Sibylla,  its  supposed  authoress. 
None  of  these  productions  attained  the  fame  or  commanded 
the  confidence  attached  to  their  original ;  ^**  nor,  as  we  have 
already  said,  was  there  affixed  to  any  one  of  them  a  name  by 
which  it  could  be  separately  identified.  Christians  found  the 
Erythriean  Sibyl,  so  far  as  it  agreed  with  their  views,  a  valua- 
ble resource  in  controversy  against  heathens.  They  were 
debarred  in  such  controversy  from  using  the  testimony  of 
their  four  Gospels,  since  these  were  avowedly  written  by 
Christians,  whose  testimony  was,  of  course,  not  admissible  in 
behalf  of  Christian  allegations.®"  The  foregoing  document 
was  free  from  suspicion  of  Christian  authorship,  for  it  existed 
before  the  Christian  era.  It  had,  moreover,  been  recognized 
by  the  highest  authority  in  Rome  as  supernatural  in  its  char- 
acter. Its  existence  compelled  the  Roman  aristocracy  and 
their  adherents,  even  before  the  Christian  era,  to  clio(jse  be- 
tween the  following  courses  of  action.  They  could  admit  its 
teachings.  But  this  implied  that  they  were  to  renounce  the 
state  I'eligion  which  was  likely  to  involve  their  own  privi- 
leges in  its  ruin.  Or.  secondly,  they  could  confess  that  the 
whole  patrician  order  had  been  imposed  upon  egregiously  by 
a  Jew.  But  such  a  confession  was  more  likely  to  diminish 
than  to  increase  the  already  waning  respect  for  their  order. 
There  was  yet  a  third  course,  which  was  to  suppress  the  docu- 
ment and  its  imitations,  so  that  its  contents  could  no  longer 
be  appealed  to.  This  plan  (see  p.  165)  was  attempted  under 
Augustus  with  but  partial  and  temporary  success. 

^^  "  Many  authors  of  high  .standing  have  written  concerning  the  Sibyls, 
as  Aristo  of  Chios  and  Apollodorus  of  Erythra  among  the  Greeks  ;  Varro 
and  Fenestella  among  our  own  [countrymen].  All  these  narrate  that  the 
Erythrffian  was  eminent  and  renowned  beyond  the  others  ;  Apollodorus, 
indeed  [being  prompted  thereto],  that  he  miglit  glory  in  his  own  city  and 
people."  —  iiactantius,  De  Ira,  22.  The  mention  by  Strabo,  of  "the 
okl  Erythriean  Sibyl  "  (17,  1,  43;  compare  14,  1,  34)  implies  at  least  that 
he  also  placed  no  other  on  a  par  with  her. 

^^  Obvious  as  the  truth  of  the  above  remark  might  seem,  no  ecclesias- 
tical history  has  called  attention  to  it.  Had  Christians  forged  the  Gos- 
pels, they  would  have  attributed  them  to  Jewish  or  heathen  authors. 


434  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 


§  III.    Sibylline  Compositions,  B.  C.  75  to  A.  D.  200,  ivere  Jewish. 

The  compositions  under  the  name  of  Sibylla  during  three 
centuries  after  the  Erythraean  forgery  were,  with  one  excep- 
tion, Jewish.  To  this  exception,  a  piece  of  but  tliirty-seven 
lines,  fabricated  doubtless  at  the  instigation  of  the  aristocracy, 
we  shall  hereafter  devote  sonie  remarks.  Its  most  appropriate 
designation  would  be  "Patrician  Opposition  Lines,"  and  this 
is  the  heading  under  which  we  shall  recur  to  it.^^  The  Chris- 
tians in  a  few  instances  interpolated  a  line  or  more  into  the 
Jewish  documents  which  they  found  ready  made  to  their  hand, 
but  anything  which  can  be  called  a  Chi'istian  composition  did 
not  originate  before  a.  d.  200  or  250.  For  the  sake  of  per- 
spicuity the  discussion  of  this  point  will  be  reserved  for  a 
separate  head.^^  We  will  begin  with  the  considerations  which 
imply  a  Jewish  origin  for  these  productions,  and  will  after- 
wards examine  any  supposed  heathen  claims. 

Firstly  :  Several  books  of  Sibylline  oracles  have  come  down 
to  us,  none  of  which  bear  marks,  either  wholly  or  in  part,  of 
heathen  origin. 

Secondly  :  Lactantius,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, lived  at  a  time  when  it  was  not  yet  in  the  power  of 
Christians  to  have  destroyed  any  heathen  Sibylline  literature. 
He  regarded  himself  as  confronted  by  persons  intelligent 
enough  and  sufficiently  conversant  with  the  subject  to  recog- 
nize at  once  when  he  quoted  Sibylline  verses  of  Christian 
origin  (Div.  List.  4,  15),  and  he  had  himself  made  the  subject 
a  special  study.  Occupying  this  position  he  quotes  the  state- 
ment of  Varro  concerning  the  Sibyls,  among  whom  only  the 
Erythraean  could  be  singled  out,  and  adds,  "  All  thesk  Sibyls, 
IN  fine,  teach  one  God."^^  We  cannot  suppose  that  he  knew 
of  heathen  Sibylline  verses,  but  trusted  to  the  ignorance  or 
silence  of  his  opponents,  nor  can  we  suppose  that  he  was 
himself  uninformed  on  the  subject. 

Thirdly  :  The  quotations  from,  the  allusions  to,  and  the 
statements  concerning  the  Sibylline  Oracles  in  Cicero  and 
Varro,  nearly  half  a  century  before,  and  in  Dio  Chrysostom 
a  century  after  the  Christian  era,  imply  or  favor  their  Jewish 
origin.     Thus,  Varro,  in  a  work,  published  from  47  to  45  b.  c, 

91  See  §  VI.  of  this  Note  A.  ^2  gee  §  iv.  of  this  Note  A. 

03  Lact.  1,  C. 


§  III.]  COMPOSITIONS   B.  C.    75   TO   A.  D.    200.  435 

speaks  of  the  Sibylline  writings  then  afloat  as  not  unfrequently 
marked  by  a  peculiarity  which  Cicero  attributes  also  to  the 
verses  from  Erythra>,  namely,  that  they  contained  acrostics.^* 
If  in  connection  with  this  we  consider  that  the  Old  Testament 
contains  twelve  acrostics,®^  and  that  extant  heathen  literature 
contains  none,  it  at  least  favors  the  Jewish  origin  of  the  doc- 
uments in  question. 

Again,  the  anticipation  of  a  "  Coming  Kingdom,"  or  a 
"  Kingdom  from  the  East,"  was  Jewish ;  the  association  of 
this  anticipation  with  that  of  a  general  conflagration  was  also 
Jewish.  Further,  heathens  treated  the  idea  of  a  general 
conflagration  as  a  matter  of  reasoning  and  speculation  ;  but 
in  the  Sibylline  verses  which  have  come  down  to  us  it  is  purely 
a  matter  of  prediction  unsupported  by  reasoning.  The  del- 
uge is  also  predicted  by  Noah  to  his  cotemporaries.  If  we 
now  turn  to  Cicero,  we  find  in  the  very  work  which  discusses 
Sibylline  pretensions,  that  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his 
brother  Quintus  a  recognition  and  defence  of  foreknowledge''^ 


^*  Varro's  Antiquities  of  Things  Divine  constituted  the  latter  half  of 
his  "  Anticjuities,"  and  if  (?)  addi-essed  to  Caius  (Julius)  C'resar,  it  must 
have  been  written  before  Ctesar's  assassination  in  March,  B.  c.  44,  and 
doubtless  later  than  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  in  August,  B.  c.  48.  The 
following  seems  to  be  a  restatement  from  it  rather  than  a  quotation  : 
"The  present  Books  are  collected  from  many  places,  some  being  brought 
from  cities  in  Italy,  others  from  Erythne  in  Asia,  envoys  being  sent 
by  a  decree  of  the  Senate  to  copy  them,  and  yet  others  from  other 
cities  and  copied  by  private  individuals,  among  which  are  found  in- 
terpolations of  the  Sibylline  Books,  which  can  be  recognized  by  what 
are  called  Acrostics.  I  am  but  stating  what  Terentius  Varro  has  nar- 
rated in  his  Theological  Treatise."  —  Dionys.  Halicar.  4,  6-.'  ;  Vol.  2, 
p.  793.     The  dedication  to  Caesar  may  have  been  a  political  forgery. 

^*  These  acrostics  are  all  alphabetical :  namely,  Psalms  25,  34,  37, 
111,  112,  119,  and  145  ;  also  Proverbs,  chapter  31,  verses  10-31,  being 
the  praises  of  a  good  wife;  also  each  of  the  first  four  chapters  of  Lamen- 
tations. The  reader  who  wishes  additional  information  may  consult 
Noj'es,  Translation  of  Psalms,  Introduct.  pp.  47-50,  and  in  Lowth, 
translation  of  Isaiah,  Prelim.  Dissert,  pp.  iv-ix,  Boston  edit.  1834; 
also  Blayney,  Introduct.  to  Lamentations,  and  note  on  chapter  2,  verses 
16,  17,  of  the  same. 

96  <<  xiiere  is  a  certain  class  of  them  [that  is,  persons  gifted  by  nature 
with  foreknowledge]  who  call  tliemselves  away  from  tlie  body  and  are 
borne  by  their  whole  care  and  thought  to  the  knowledge  of  divine 
things.  Their  auguries  are  not  the  result  of  a  divine  impulse,  but  of 
human  reason  [by  which  must  be  understood,  not  reasoning,  but  natural 
endowment],  since  by  [their]  nature  they  have  a  prior  consciousness  of 
future  events,  as  of  floods  and  of  the  conflagration  of  heaven  and  earth 
which  will  take  place  at  some  future  time.     Others,  specially  skilled 


436  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

illustrated  by  those  who  foreknow  floods,  the  general  confla- 
gration, and  a  "  Coming  Kingdom,"  or  else  a  "  Kingdom  from 
the  East."  If  there  could  ba  any  question  as  to  what  Cicero 
had  in  mind,  it  would  seem  to  ii3e  dispelled  by  the  allusion 
elsewhere^"  to  foi-eknowledge  as  "  the  Prophetic  Old  Woman 
of  the  Stoics."  If  we  suppose  that  all  this  refers  to  Jewish 
Sibylline  writers,  it  becomes  comprehensible  and  natural 
enough ;  but  on  any  other  supposition  it  is  an  inexplicable 
enigma.  The  relation,  moreover,  of  Stoic  to  Jewish  belief*^ 
strengthens  the  former  supposition. 

Again,  Cicei'o,  in   a  passage   from  which  a  quotation   will 
appear  in  note  99,  speaks  of  Sibylla  as  "  exciting  supersti- 


touching  public  things  (as  we  have  heard  concerning  the  Athenian  Solon), 
rojiESEE  a  kingdom  from  the  East,  orientcm  ti/rannidem,  long  hefore- 
liand."  —  Be  Divinationc,  1  (49),  111.  Orientem  is  here  used,  probably, 
as  in  Horace  (Book  1,  Ode  12,  line  55,  orientis  orw)  for  eastern.  Its 
original  signification,  rising,  is  inapjilieable  to  a  kingdom  "  long  before  " 
its  existence.  Quintus,  availing  himself  of  a  twofold  signification  of 
the  word,  supports  the  believers  in  a  predicted  Kingdom  from  the  East 
by  the  authority  of  Solon,  who  noticed  (not  foresaw)  earlier  than  others 
(not  earlier  than  its  commencement)  a  growing  regal  power,  qui  Pisistrati 
tyrannidem  jnnmiis  vidit  orientem  {Valer.  Max.  5,  3).  In  order,  how- 
ever, to  avoid  risk  of  placing  more  stress  on  the  argument  than  it  will 
certainly  bear,  the  reader  will  find  in  the  text  an  alternate  translation 
"coming  kingdom  "  as  preferable,  for  the  reason  already  stated  to  "rising 
kingdom."  He  should  in  this  connection  examine  the  following  Siliylline 
passage.  The  absence  from  it  of  any  bitterness  towards  the  Romans  indi- 
cates that  it  was  one  of  the  earlier  productions,  possibly  prior  to  B.  c.  63, 
and  almost  certainly  as  old  as  Cicero's  work  on  Divination. 

"And  then  God  will  send  a  Kine  from  the  East, 
Who  shall  cause  the  whole  earth  to  cease  from  wicked  war, 
By  killing  some,  and  administering  binding  oaths  to  others. 
Nor  shall  he  do  tliese  things  by  his  own  counsels, 
But  bv  obeying  the  excellent  rules  of  the  Great  God. 
And  'The  j'eople'  of  the  Great  God  shall  again  shine. 
Loaded  with  wealth,  with  golH  and  silver 
And  fine  purple.     I'he  earth  shall  be  fruitful, 
The  sea  full  of  good  things.     And  kings, 
Guarding  against  wicked-minded  anger  towards  each  other, 
Shall  begin:  '  Envy  is  not  good  for  miserable  mortals.'  " 

SibyL  Orac.  3,052-662. 

In  the  foregoing  I  surmise  tliat  irepiKaWei  may  have  been  intended  by 
its  Jewish  author  as  a  verb.  The  sense  will  be  essentially  the  same,  if  it 
be  deemed  an  adjective.  Lactantius  (7,  is)  quotes  the  first  two  lines  as 
from  another  Sibyl,  — that  is,  not  the  Erythraean.  With  the  aliove  ex- 
tract may  be  compared  a  passage  (Sibyl.  C)rac.  3,  46  sqq.)  already  quoted 
on  pp.  120,  121. 

^  Cicero,  J)e  NaMra  Deorum,  1  (8),  IS;  cp.  2  (29),  73. 

^  See,  in  the  body  of  this  work,  Ch.  III. 


§  m.]  COMPOSITIONS   B.  C.    75   TO   A.  D.  200.  437 

tious  fears."  This  would  at  least  accord  with  the  supposition 
that  these  writings  were  Jewish,  such  as  have  come  down 
to  us.  It  does  not  harmonize  with  the  idea  that  they  resem- 
bled anything  extant,  or  known  to  have  existed  formerly  in 
heathen  literature.  Cicero  refers  evidently  not  to  documents 
floating  among  the  people,  but  to  those  in  the  public  collec- 
tion. 

Again,  Jewish  teaching,  in  extant  Sibylline  verses,  treats 
the  Deity  as  the  real  ruler  or  king  of  mankind,  and  enjoins 
on  men  that  if  they  would  be  saved,  they  should  recognize  or 
address  him  as  such.  Cicero,  in  a  work  finished  in  b.  c.  44 
or  43,  mentions  an  expectation  as  preceding  the  assassination 
of  Julius  Cresar,  namely,  that  the  interpreter  of  the  Sibylline 
writings  was  about  to  say  in  the  Senate,  "  He  who  was  our 
real  king  should  be  called  king,  if  we  wished  to  be  saved.''^^ 
A  passage  still  extant  would  need  no  very  forced  translation 
to  give  this  meaning,  though  it  lacks  the  concluding  expres- 
sion, which  I  suppose  to  be  a  translation  of  the  Greek  word 
o-w^^vat,  technical  as  a  theological  term  among  both  Jews  and 
Christians.^°° 


^  "  Let  us  observe  the  verses  of  Sibylla,  which  she  is  said  to  have 
poured  out  during  a  frenzy,  tlie  interpreter  of  which  writings  it  was 
lately  thought,  in  accordance  with  a  false  report,  was  about  to  say  in  the 
Senate  that  '  He  who  was  our  real  king  should  he  called  king,  if  we 
wished  to  be  saved.'  If  this  be  in  these  books,  to  what  man  and  to  what 
time  does  it  refer  ?  .  .  .  Wherefore  let  us  lay  away  Sibylla  and  keep  her 
hid,  so  that,  as  delivered  to  us  by  our  ancestors,  her  books  may  not  even 
be  read  without  command  of  the  Senate,  and  may  be  efficacious  in  allay- 
ing rather  than  EXcrriN'a  superstitious  fears.  Let  us  deal  with  the 
guardians  of  these  books  that  they  should  produce  from  them  anything 
rather  than  a  king  whom  henceforth  neither  men  nor  gods  will  tolerate 
at  Rome."  —  Cicero,  De  Divinatione,  2  (54),  110-11-2. 

The  work  on  Divination  (1,  11!))  mentions  the  death  of  Coesar,  and  was 
written,  therefore,  as  late  as  44  B.  c.  Cicero  was  killed  in  the  following 
year,  so  that  the  work  cannot  have  been  later  than  43  b.  c. 

W'*  The  Sibylline  Oracles,  3,  560,  .501,  might  bear  the  mistransla- 
tion :  — 

"  Jlortals  shall  begin  to  call  their  sjreat  defender  a  kins;, 
And  to  query  [touching]  their  great  deliverer,  what  position  he  should  hold." 

The  correct  meaning  can,  however,  be  seen  in  their  connection. 

"  But  when  the  anger  of  the  Great  God  shall  be  upon  you 
Then  you  shall  recognize  the  countenance  of  the  Great  God. 
All  souls  of  men  in  the  depth  of  their  affliction, 
Stretching  their  hands  to  the  broad  heaven. 
Shall  begin  to  call  the  Great  King  'their  Preserver,' 
And  to  seek  [concerning]  then-  deliverer  from  the  wrath, '  who  he  may  be  V  " 


438  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

Again,  portions  of  the  Old  Testament  teach  that  a  right 
life  is  better  than  sacritice  or  offering. ^°^  It  would  be  difficult 
to  find  a  similar  idea  in  heathen  writers  who  were  unin- 
fluenced by  Judaism  or  Christianity.  But  Dio  Chrysostom, 
who  was  influenced  by  both,  appends  to  such  teaching  the 
statement  that  it  accorded  with  what  could  be  found  in 
Sibylla. '«- 

Among  dialogues  in  what  are  styled  "  Plutarch's  Morals  "  is 
one  containing  an  allusion  to  "  Sibylla  of  the  insane  [that  is, 
prophetic]  voice,"  as  "  speaking  things  which  awaken  no  mirth, 
and  are  devoid  of  paint  or  perfumery."  ^^^  The  remark, 
though  not  very  definite,  ought  not  in  this  connection  to  be 
omitted,  since  it  agrees  with  the  character  of  extant  Sibylline 
verses,  but  would  be  inapplicable  to  any  class  of  heathen 
poetry.  The  same  passage  mentions  one  thousand  years  as 
Sibylla's  lifetime ;  a  duration  suggested  probably  by  the 
Erythraean  narrative.  A  difterent  passage  of  the  same  dia- 
logue alludes  to  the  destruction  and  transplanting  of  Greek 
cities,  the  irruption  of  barbarians  and  overturning  of  empires 
as  contained  in  the  Sibylline  verses,  and  asks  whether  the  late 
events  at  Cumae  and  Dicfearchia  (the  eruption  of  Vesuvius, 
A.  D.  79)  had  not  been  predicted  in  them.^'^*  Existing  Sibyl- 
line fragments  leave  little  doubt  that  we  have  remains  of  the 
passages  to  which  the  speaker  referred.^°^ 

Fourthly  :  In  the  intermediate  period  between  Cicero  and 
Dio  Chrj'sostomwe  have  found  that  governmental  action  against 
Sibylline  writings  was  coincident  with  that  against  Jews ;  also 
that  singing  of  a  supposed  Sibylline  verse  was  followed  in  one 
instance  by  senatorial  action  against  the  Jews,  and  in  a  second 
instance  by  a  rebellion  in  Judtea.-^'^^     Nor  should  it  be  over- 


101  "The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  s]iirit:  a  liroken  and  a  contrite 
heai't,  0  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise."  — Ps.  51, 17.  "  Let  my  i>rayer  be  set 
forth  before  thee  as  incense ;  and  the  Ufting  up  of  my  liands  as  the 
evening  sacrifice."  —  Ps.  141,  "2.  "To  do  justice  and  equity  is  more 
acceptable  to  the  Lord  than  sacrifice."  —  Prov.  21,  3.  Compare  on 
p.  22,  Is.  1,  10-18;  and  on  p.  392,  Ps.  40,  (i;  Hosea  6,  0. 

i"'-'  See  close  of  note  130. 

103  De  Pythiae  Oraculis,  I'lutarch's  AVorks,  Vol.  7,  p.  561. 

1'^  De  Pythiae  Oraculis,  Plutarch's  "Works,  Vol.  7,  p.  .''^67. 

1°''  The  allusion  to  ( ■unite  and  to  the  eruiition  of  nshes  is  in  the  Sibyl- 
line Oracles,  Book  5,  lines  308-315.  The  irruption  of  barbarians  is 
mentioned  Hook  3,  lines  520  -  536.  The  destruction  of  cities  is  to  be 
found  in  many  passages. 

^J"  See  pp.  "164,  165,  188,  189,  243,  244. 


§  III.]  COMPOSITIONS   B.  C.  75   TO   A.  D.    200.  439 

looked  in  this  connection,  that  the  verse  agreed  not  with  the 
Etruscan  idea  of  a  nation's  fall  at  the  close  of  its  tenth  age, 
but  with  the  Jewish  peculiarity  that  Rome's  fall  should  occur 
at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  age,  or  when  thrice  three  hun- 
dred years  had  been  numbered. 

If  we  now  examine  the  allegations  of  heathen  authorship 
for  Sibylline  writings,  they  may  be  divided  into  two  classes. 
One  of  these  belongs  to  and  is  treated  imder  another  head.-^^'^ 
It  is  the  allegation  by  Christians,  after  the  Jewish  i-ebellion 
under  Hadrian,  of  a  heathen  authorship  for  the  Erythraean  or 
other  OBVIOUSLY  Jewish  verses  which  they  quote.  As  the 
verses  are  not  by  a  heathen,  they  need  no  discussion  here. 
The  other  class  consists  of  implications  or  allegations  in 
heathen  authors.  Thus,  Virgil  speaks  of  Sibylla  as  a  priestess 
of  Apollo.  In  his  case  we  can  identify  as  Jewish  the  docu- 
ment which  he  uses.  He  was  patronized  by  Augustus,  and 
must  have  been  prompted  either  by  deference  for  the  emperor 
or  by  some  other  bias,  to  claim  for  Apollo's  priestess  the  estab- 
lished prestige  of  the  Erythraean  composition.  No  such  claim, 
it  may  be  remarked,  seems  to  have  been  made  in  behalf  of  the 
original  patrician  forgery.  The  earliest  quotation  of  heathen 
verses  in  connection  with,  or  bearing  upon,  the  allegation 
which  we  are  considering,  was  in  the  second  century.  Only 
two  or  three  such  quotations  exist.  None  of  them  justify  the 
supposition  that  heathen  documents  of  a  Sibylline  character 
were  afloat.^"*    A  single  one  of  them  has  been  used  by  Clement 

1°'^  See  Ch.  XI.  §  i.  2  ;  also  the  present  Note  §  v.  5,  and  §  viii. 
^°*  A  passage  ft'om  Pausanias  in  Phocicis,    cited  by  OpsopcEUS  in 
his  collection  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  pp.  72-  83,  contains  two  assumed 
quotations  from  Sibylla  of  four  and  six  lines  respectively  (pp.  7o,  76  -  78). 
The  latter  of  these  is  obviously  an  ejiitaph,  which  couhl  not  have  formed 
part  of  a  published  document.     It  originated,  doubtless,  in  the  desire  of 
some  heathens  at  Troas  to  claim,  by  the  erection  of  a  monument,  that 
Sibylla  was  there  buried.     The  epitaph  begins  :  — 
"  I  am  Sibylla,  the  interpreter  of  Phcebus, 
To  be  inquired  of  under  this  stone  monument; 
Formerly  a  speaking  virgin,  now  eternally  silent." 

The  other,  or  first-mentioned  quotation,  consists  of  four  lines,  of  which 
the  last  one  was,  according  to  Solinus  (in  Opsopceus,  p.  79),  i-ejected  by  the 
Erythraeans  ;  probably  because  it  assigned  the  neigliborhood  of  Troy 
(Troas)  as  the  birthplace  of  Sibylla.  The  whole  four  may  have  been 
merely  another  portion  of  the  ejiitaph  already  mentioned.  They  read  as 
follows,  the  first  two  admitting  an  accurate,  and  the  last  two  a  somewhat 
conjectural,  translation  :  — 

"  I  am  born  half  of  mortal,  half  of  immortal  parentage, 
Of  an  immortal  nymph  and  a  fish-eating  [fisherman  ( V)]  father; 


440  SYBILLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

of  Alexandria,  and  therefore  calls  for  a  word  of  explanation 
touching  his  views,  without  which  his  use  of  it  might  seem 
incomprehensible.  To  avoid  encumbering  the  text,  I  transfer 
the  remarks  upon  it  to  a  note.-^"^ 


Descended  on  the  mother's  side  from  moisture  [or  heat,  ISoyei/ijs]  my  country 

is  red 
Marpessus.    The  river  Aidoneus  is  sacred  to  my  mother." 

The  omission  by  the  Erythraeans  of  the  fourth  line  would  have  left  for 
conclusion  of  the  third  "my  country  is  Erythne,"  and  would  also  have 
obviated  one  or  two  grammatical  difficulties.  Perhaps  the  first  three 
lines  originated  among  heathens  at  Erythrai,  and  tlie  iburtli  may  have 
been  added  by  inhabitants  of  Troas  so  as  to  accommodate  tlie  sentiment 
—  whether  for  an  epitaph  or  otherwise  —  to  their  locality.  The  Eryth- 
rseans  maintained  tliat  the  nymph's  name  was  Idiea  (Solinus,  quoted 
by  Opsopoeus,  p.  79),  and  must  probably  liave  attributed  this  meaning  to 
Idoyev'rjs.  Solinus  luiderstood  the  same  word  as  meaning  that  Sibylla's 
mother  was  a  nymph  of  Mt.  Ida.  He  identifies  Sibylla  with  Herophile 
(concerning  whom  see  Additioxal  Rem.\rks  in  §  v.),  and  ascribes  to  her 
the  prediction  concerning  Troy.  Both  of  tliese  peculiarities  accord  well 
enough  with  the  effort  to  claim  for  a  heathen  authoiess  the  prestige  of  the 
Erythraean  verses,  but  fail  to  indicate  the  existence  of  Delphic  or  other 
heathen  Sibylline  documents. 

^'^^  Solinus  Polyhistor  says  of  Herophile  or  Sibylla,  wliose  epitaph 
has  already  been  given,  that  "the  people  of  Delphi  make  mention  of  her 
hymns  to  Apollo."  —  Opsopccus,  p.  72.  It  would  seem  a  reasonable  infer- 
ence from  this,  that  outside  of  Delphi  little  was  known  of  tliem.  Clem* 
ent  of  Alexandria  has  preserved  three  heathen  lines,  extant,  possilily, 
at  Dclplii,  which  will  become  more  intelligible  by  a  further  quotation 
from  Solinus  in  direct  continuation  of  the  above,  to  the  etiect  that  the 
lady  "  calls  lierself  not  only  Herophile,  but  Diana  in  her  verses  [in  these 
hymns  (?)],  and  alleges  herself  the  wife,  and  again,  the  sister,  and  again, 
the  daughter  of  Apollo,"  for  which  rather  inconsistent  professions  Solinus 
apologizes  by  adding,  "  Tliese  things  she  did  in  her  insanity  when  pos- 
sessed by  the  god."     The  hymn  preserved  by  Clement  is  as  follows  :  — 

"  0  Delphians,  servants  of  far-shooting  Apollo! 
I  have  come  to  utter  the  mind  of  regis-liearing  Jove, 
Having  become  auiji-v  at  niv  brother  Apollo." 

Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  1  (21),  108;  edit.  Pott.  p.  384. 

It  seems  probable  from  the  above  that  some  of  the  peojile  at  Delphi, 
whose  oracle  had  now  been  silent  for  about  two  centuries,  must  have  en- 
deavored to  indemnify  themselves  by  maiuifacturing  occasionally  a  fugitive 
verse  which  cl.vi.mkd  by  implication  a  residence  of  Sibylla  in  their  iieigli- 
borhood.  Tliere  are  no  indications  at  Delphi  or  elsewheie  of  heathen 
Sibylline  productions  to  a  greater  extent  than  this. 

Clement  was  not  indifferent  to  idolatry.  He  may,  in  enumerating  the 
Sibyls,  have  copied  the  lines  without  appreciating  their  bearing,  — for  he 
was  not  a  critical  writer,  —  or  he  may  liave  shai-ed  the  view  given  in  the 
Lexicon  of  S\iidas  under  the  heads  of  "  AroLLo"  and  "Jupiter's  Voice," 
that  "Apollo  is  a  Prophet  of  the  Fatlier." 


§iv.]  CHRISTIAN   COMPOSITIONS.  441 


§  IV.    Christian  Compositions  were  later  than  A.  D.  200. 

In  our  present  collection  of  Sibylline  Books  are  two  portions 
of  Christian  origin  to  whose  general  character  we  shall  here- 
after devote  some  examination.  These  have  been  erroneously 
regarded  as  |  productions  of  the  first  century,  or  at  latest,  of 
an  early  date  in  the  second.  Writers  of  high  standing  have 
adopted  and  propagated  this  mistake.  In  a  note  of  Maran  to 
the  Cohortatio  ad  Grsecos,  quoted  into  Otto's  edition  without 
mark  of  dissent,  the  position  is  assumed  as  not  admitting 
question,  that  our  present  Sibylline  verses  of  Christian  origin 
were  already  in  existence  before  the  Cohortatio  was  written. ^^° 
A  critical  examination  of  the  passage  to  which  the  note  is 
appended  will  convince  a  person  familiar  with  early  Christian 
discussions  that  the  reverse  inference  is  probable.  Extant 
Sibylline  documents  of  Christian  origin  contain,  if  we  except 
one  acrostic,  predictions  of  Christ's  doings  and  sufterings  upon 
EARTH,  but  the  passage  in  the  Cohortatio  alludes  only  to  a 
prediction  of  his  yet  future  coming,  to  which  we  have  already 
called  attention."^  Further,  the  absence  from  the  Cohortatio 
and  from  all  other  Christian  authors  in  the  second  century 
of  any  quotation  from,  or  allusion  to,  Sibylline  predictions  of 
Christ's  doings  or  sufferings  upon  earth,  implies  that  they 
knew  of  no  such  writings.  The  earliest  mention  of,  or  quota- 
tion from,  them  is  at  the  end  of  the  third  centuiy,  or  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fourth,  in  Lactantius. 

I  am  not  unaware  that  Gibbon,"^  has  attributed  to  Tertul- 

no  "  From  these  words  we  can  determine  with  certainty  that  already, 
at  the  date  when  Justin  wrote,  a  digest  into  one  collection  had  been  made, 
if  not  of  all  the  Sibylline  Books  such  as  we  now  have  them,  yet  at  least 
of  those  portions  which  contain  a  clear  and  plain  prediction  concerning 
Christ's  advent,  and  concerning  all  things  which  he  should  do.  Justin, 
indeed,  bad  no  suspicion  how  every  page  of  these  books  proclaims  a  fraud." 
—  Maran,  quoted  by  Otto,  under  Cohortat.  ad  Graec.  38,  in  note  8. 
The  passage,  —  a  short  interpolation, — wliich  in  all  probability  the  author 
of  the  Cohortatio  had  in  mind,  has  been  given  italicized  in  brat'kets  on 
page  428,  preceded  by  some  remarks  on  p.  427.  It  could  not  refer  to  the 
life  of  Jesus  on  earth.  Its  selection,  moreover,  to  the  exclusion  of  any 
other  concerning  Jesus,  implies  that  the  writer  knew  no  other  Sibylline 
passage  which  predicted  the  Gospel  narrative. 

"1  See  (as  in  preceding  note)  pp.  426,  427,  428,  especially  note  77.  The 
interpolation  on  p.  428  mentions  Christ  distinctly.  The  acrostic  does 
not. 

""■^  "When  TertuUian  assures  the  Pagans  that  the  mention  of  the 
prodigy  is  tbund  in  Arcanis  (not  Archivis)  vestris  (see  his  Apuluyy,  21),  he 


442  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

lian  a  mention  of  these  Christian  oracles.  The  method  by 
which  he  misled  himself  can  be  more  readily  explained  if  a 
previous  word  be  bestowed  on  the  object  of  Tertullian's  state- 
ment. Christian  controversialists  in  their  disputes  with 
heathens  were  sorely  embarrassed  by  the  fact  that  the  four 
narrations  of  their  Master's  life,  commonly  in  use,  bore  the 
names  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  persons  universally 
recognized  as  Clu-istians.  Since,  however,  Christian  writers 
could  not  be  quoted  in  behalf  of  Christian  allegations,  a  forgei'y 
had  been  perpetrated  which  was  intended  to  remedy  this 
difficulty.  It  was  called  Pilate's  Report.  Tertullian,  in 
speaking  of  the  darkness  at  the  crucifixion,  sajs  to  the  hea- 
thens :  "  At  the  same  moment  [when  he  died]  daylight  dis- 
appeared, though  the  sun  was  at  its  height.  Those  deemed 
it  an  eclipse  who  were  ignorant  that  it  also  had  been  fore- 
told concerning  Christ ;  and  yet  you  have  recorded  in  your 
archives  that  accident  to  the  world.  .  .  .  Pilate,  who  as 
regarded  his  own  convictions  was  already  a  Christian,  an- 
nounced at  that  time  all  those  things  concerning  Christ  to 
Tiberius."  "^  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  had  in  mind  the 
pretended  Report.  Of  course  no  such  document  existed  in 
the  PUBLIC  archives  of  Rome,  and  some  Christian  probably 
noted  as  an  explanation  in  the  margin  of  Tertullian's  Apology 
the  word  "  secret,"  meaning  that  the  Report  had  been  hidden 
among  secret  archives.  Some  transcriber  has  mistaken  this 
marginal  addition  as  a  substitute  for  archives,  an  error  which 
could  happen  in  tlie  Latin  though  not  in  the  English,  since 
in  the  former  language  it  may  mean  "  Secret  Things."  Gibbon 
adopts  this  reading,  interprets  it  as  meaning  the  Sibylline 
verses,  and  says,  erroneously,  that  they  relate  the  darkness 
attendant  on  the  crucifixion  exactly  in  the  words  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Tertullian  cannot  possibly  have  referred  to  the  Sibylline 
Oracles,  since  they  contain  no  narrative  whatever  of  the  cruci- 
fixion or  darkness.  What  they  do  contain  is  a  prediction 
that   such   events  would  take  place.      But  what   Tertullian 


probably  appeals  to  the  Sibylline  Verses,  wliich  relate  it  exactly  in  the 
words  of  the  Gospel."  —  Gibbon,  c.  15,  foot-note  196.  The  erroneous 
readint^  Areanis,  though  found  in  but  one  nuiuuscnjit,  is  adopted  by  sev- 
eral editors  of  Tertullian's  works. 

^1^  Tertullian,  jlpol.  c.  21.  In  Pilate's  Report  the  mention  of  this  dark- 
ness (Tliilo,  Codex  Ajxic.  )ip.  110,  111)  is  accompanied  by  the  information 
that  the  moon  was  then  full,  which  would,  of  course,  render  a  natural 
eclipse  of  the  sun  impossible. 


§rv.]  CHRISTIAN    COMPOSITIONS.  443 

needed  was  historical  evidence  that  they  had  taken  place,  and 
his  reference  is  not  to  a  prediction,  but  to  a  historical  narra- 
tion. 

The  Sibylline  verses  of  Christian  origin  are  not  voluminous. 
A  slight  classification,  however,  will  aid  the  reader  in  compre- 
hending them.  Three  pieces  contain  predictions  of  Christ's 
life  and  doings  on  earth.  One  of  these,  Book  1,  lines  324  -  400, 
is  somewhat  awkwardly  connected  in  our  present  copies  with 
that  portion  of  the  Erythraean  verses  which  I  have  desig- 
nated by  B.  The  lines  which  connect  it  therewith  may  have 
been  an  addition  to,  or  an  attempted  condensation  of,  ideas 
in  the  Ei-ythreean  document.  The  object  of  this  connec- 
tion must  have  been  to  obtain  currency  for  the  Christian 
forgery. 

Another  of  these  pieces,  twenty-eight  lines  long,  constitutes 
the  whole  of  Book  6,  and  stands  disconnected  from  an^'thing 
else. 

The  remaining  prediction  of  Christ's  life  on  earth  is  in 
Book  8,  lines  25G  -  323.  This  stands  at  present  in  tolerably 
close  sequence  upon  an  acrostic  concerning  the  judgment.  It 
is,  of  course,  chronologically  out  of  place  as  a  sequence  upon 
that  event.  Its  present  position  may  have  been  owing  to  an 
occurrence  of  the  word  "judgment"  in  its  first  line,  or  it  may 
have  originated  with  the  author  of  lines  244-255,  to  which 
we  will  subsequently  recur. 

Placing  in  the  note  "■*  an  account  of  smaller  portions  which 


"*  Aside  from  the  interpolation  (Book  2,  242-245)  already  mentioned, 
there  are  two  lines  (Book  5,  4S,  4!t)  commendatory  of  Hadrian  which  must 
have  originated  with  a  Christian. 

The  address  to  Jerusalem  (Book  8,  324-336),  which  begins,  — 

"Rejoice,  sacred  and  much-suffering  daughter  of  Zion, 
Thy  king  makes  his  entry  riding  on  a  colt,"  — 

is  evidently  from  a  Christian,  perhaps  from  the  author  of  what  immedi- 
ately precedes  it,  though  its  position  after  the  crucifixion  is  an  objection 
to  this  view. 

In  lines  440-480  of  Book  8,  the  Son,  or  Logos,  to  whom  the  Deity 
originally  proposed  the  work  of  creation,  is  identified  with  the  child  born 
of  Mary.  These  lines  have  the  peculiarity  of  being  a  narration  instead 
of  a  prediction. 

In  the  same  book,  line  484  is  by  a  Christian,  and  perhaps  the  three 
lines  which  follow  it. 
_  A  disconnected  fragment,  Book  3,  lines  93  -  96,  is  evidently  of  Chris- 
tian origin. 

There  are  three  consecutive  paragraphs  in  Book  7,  lines  66-95,  written 


444  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

might  unduly  distrnct  the  reader's  attention,  I  proceed  to  the 
acrostic,  Book  8,  hnes  217-243.  The  initial  letters  of  the 
Greek  verses  constitute  the  words  "Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  God, 
Saviour."  These  lines  are  on  the  subject  of  the  futiu'e  judg- 
ment, the  phraseology  being  more  or  less  borrowed  from  ear- 
lier productions.  It  does  not  now  stand  in  connection  with 
any  portion  of  the  Erythra3an  verses.  Neither  can  it  have 
done  so  in  the  days  of  Lactantius,  whose  method  of  quoting 
it  shows  that  he  took  it  from  some  other  production.  If 
Lactantius  did  not  find  it  in  the  Erythreean  verses,  there  is 
no  reason  for  supposing  that  the  author  of  the  Cohortatio 
(see  pp.  426,  427,  428,  441)  had  it  in  mind,  or  that  it  existed 
in  his  time. 

After  the  above  acrostic  we  have  the  commencement,  at 
least,  of  another  in  quite  a  diflerent  tone  and  apparently  by  a 
different  hand.  The  acrostic,  if  finished,  would  have  been 
"  The  Cross  which  Moses  typified."  ^'^  Either,  however,  the 
author's  perseverance  gave  out,  or  the  acrostic  has  been  muti- 
lated by  time. 

I  siu-mise  that  this  fragment  and  the  prediction  which  im- 
mediately follows  it  (lines  256  -  323),  concerning  our  Savioui''s 
life  on  earth,  proceeded  from  the  same  hand.  I  surmise  also 
that  they  were  appended  by  their  author  himself  to  the 
preceding  acrostic  concerning  the  judgment.  This,  as  re- 
gards the  smaller  fragment,  wovild  seem  to  be  implied  in 
the  allusion  of  line  249  to  acrostics.  It  is  as  regards  lines 
256  -  323  corroborated  by  language  of  Lactantius,  which  ac- 
quires  the    semblance  of  argument  only   by   supposing  that 


by  a  somewhat  imaginative  Christian,  not  from  any  controversial  pur- 
pose, but  njiparetitly  as  an  expression  of  his  own  me(htations  and  de- 
vout feelings,  which  were  not  untinctured  witli  extravagance.  The 
first  is  a  meditation  concerning  Jesus.  Tlie  second  and  tliird  are  medi- 
tations, or  directions,  on  the  subjects  respectively  of  prayer  and  benevo- 
lence. 

115  STATPOS  'ON  ET[TnfiS]E  [MfiSHS].  The  initial  letters  of  the 
lines  constitute  only  so  nuich  of  this  as  is  not  included  in  bi'ackets. 
The  remainder  is  suggested  by  a  portion  of  line  2.57.  The  concejition  is 
based  on  the  statement  (Exodus,  17,  ll,  V2),  thnt  while  the  hands  of 
Moses  were  held  up,  and  only  while  they  were  held  uj),  the  Israelites,  led 
on  by  Joshua  (the  nanu^  is  the  same  as  Jesus  in  the  original)  triumphed 
over  the  Amalekites.  Christian  writers  of  the  semi-Jewish  school,  in  the 
second  century,  understood  that  the  arms  of  Moses  were  distended  at 
right  angles  to  his  body,  so  as  to  form  with  it  the  figure  of  a  cross.  See 
Justin  Martyr,  Jh'nl.  90;  Barnabas,  12  (11,3-5);  TertuUian,  Adv.  Ju- 
daos,  10 ;  Adv.  Marcion.  3,  18. 


§  IV.]  CHRISTIAN    COMPOSITIONS.  445 

in  his  day  these  verses  were  connected  with  obvious  acros- 
tics."*^ 

If  we  now  ask  whether  the  circumstances  of  Christians  in 
the  third  century  presented  some  peculiarity  which  offered  a 
temptation  for  forgery  of  Sibylline  verses,  the  answer  is  as 
follows :  In  the  preceding  century  the  Old  Testament  had 
been  regarded  as  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  predictions  con- 
cerning events  in  Christ's  life.  But  for  some  reason  or  other 
a  suspicion  found  place  among  heathens  in  the  third  century, 
that  it  had  been  tampered  with,  or  that  some  of  its  books  had 
been  forged  by  Christians.  This  is  doubtless  the  chief  reason 
why  Arnobius  forbears  any  argument  from  it,  and  why  Lactan- 
tius  defers  such  argument  until  other  proofs  should  have  given 
his  readers  a  reasonable  degree  of  confidence  in  Christianity.^^^ 
The  most  apparent  grounds  for  the  rise  at  that  date  of  this 
suspicion  are  the  following :  Porphyry,  a  heathen,  had  com- 
posed a  work  in  support  of  the  position  that  the  Book  of 
Daniel  was  written  later  than  the  events  which  it  predicts."* 
Secondly,  a  forgery  in  the  name  of  Isaiah,  by  some  Christian 
at  the  close  of  the  second  century,  was  in  circulation  bearing 
the  title,  "  Ascension  of  Isaiah."  Thirdly,  two  or  three  in- 
terpolations by  Christians  had  found  place  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, which  can  be  examined  in  Underworld  Mission,  pp.  39, 
75  ;   3d   edit.  pp.   37,   38,   71,   72.      At  a  time  when  scanty 

1^^  Lactantius,  after  his  two  quotations  from  Book  8,  273-278,  in  con- 
nection with  other  passages,  says  :  "Some,  confuted  hy  these  testimonies, 
are  wont  to  take  refuge  in  the  statement  that  those  are  not  Sibylline 
verses,  "but  forged  and  comiiosed  by  ourselves.  No  one  will  think  this 
who  shall  have  read  Cicero  and  Varro  and  other  ancients,  —  authors  dead 
before  Christ's  corporal  birth,  —  who  mention  [both]  the  Erythraean  Sibyl 
and  those  others  from  whose  books  we  adduce  those  [argumentative] 
specimens."  —  Institutes,  4,  15.  The  argument,  imperfectly  stated  by 
Lactantius,  was  perhaps  meant  to  be  as  follows  :  Cicero  and  Varro  men- 
tion acrostics.  The  foregoing  quotations  are  from  the  only  document 
which  contains  acrostics.  It  miist  have  been  in  their  hands,  and  must, 
therefore,  have  existed  before  there  were  any  Christians  who  could  forge 
it,  and  prior  also  to  the  events  which  it  predicts.  That  those  ancients 
could  make  nothing  out  of  it  is,  he  afterwards  adds,  no  argument  against 
it.  The  prevalent  distrust  of  acrostics  will  account  for  the  lack  of  ex- 
plicitness  in  his  statement.  He  wished  to  avoid,  so  far  as  possible,  in- 
curring public  mistrust. 

"^  See  Lactant.  IHv.  Inst.  4,  5,  quoted  in  Ch.  XI.  note  40.  In  an 
earlier  part  of  his  w-ork  {Div.  Inst.  1,  4,  5),  Lactantius  gives  as  a  reason  for 
there  omitting  testimony  from  the  prophets,  that  heathens  regard  their 
teachings  as  not  divine  but  human,  an  objection  which,  but  for  the  suspi- 
cion already  mentioned,  would  have  had  equal  force  in  the  second  century. 

"*  See  quotation  from  Jerome  in  Ch.  XI.  note  38. 


446  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

facilities  existed  for  critical  research  these  circumstances  may 
account  for  the  suspicion  in  question. 


§  V,    Additional  RemarTcs. 

Some  remarks  omitted  in  the  preceding  sections,  because 
they  belonged  to  no  one  head  more  than  to  another,  are  here 
submitted. 

1.  Touching  the  somewhat  perplexed  nomenclature  of  the 
Sibylline  verses,  the  following  considerations  may  assist  the 
reader.  The  aristocratic  forgery  had  been  attributed  to  Si- 
bylla of  Cumse ;  it  was,  therefore,  natural  that  she  should  be 
called  Cumeean.  The  next  forgery  in  her  name  had  been 
brought  from  Erythrte,  which  prompted  the  term  "Eryth- 
raean." The  assumed  autlioress  professed  to  have  come  from 
Babylon,  which  originated  the  term  "  Babylonian."  Babylon 
•was  deemed  the  chief  city  of  Chaldsoa  (Pliny,  6,  30,  4),  hence 
the  name  Chaldsean.  Chalda;a  and  Persia  were  sometimes 
confounded,  giving  rise  to  the  term  "  Persian  " ;  and,  as  the 
verses  were  evidently  Jewish,  the  term  "Jewish  Sibyl"  was 
added  to  the  list. 

Further,  the  Erythraean  verses  predicted  Troy's  destruction. 
This  occasioned  the  two  terms  "  Trojan  Sibyl "  and,  as  Troy 
was  on  the  Hellespont,  "  Hellespontine  Sibyl."  But  "  both 
the  Greek  and  Roman  poets  used  the  names  of  Trojan  and 
Phrygian  as  synonymes"  (Smith,  Diet,  of  Geog.  2,  p.  621), 
and  this  gave  rise  to  the  name  Phrygian  Sibyh  The  wi-itcr 
was  professedly  a  daughter-in-law  of  Noah,  his  companion  in 
the  ark,  and  the  verses  gave  a  prominent  place  to  the  deluge. 
This  occasioned  the  term  "  Noachic  Sibyl." 

Furtlier,  the  heathens  in  Italy  and  Greece  had  no  desire 
that  their  favorite  god  of  inspiration,  Apollo,  should  be  over- 
shadowed by  Jewish  verses.  Hence,  in  spite  of  all  evidence, 
some  of  them  treated  Sibylla  as  a  priestess  of  Apollo,  and  the 
term  "  Delphic  Sibyl  "  was  added  to  the  list.  The  names 
Ilerophiie,  dear  to  Juno,  and  Athenais,  belonging  to  Minerva, 
were  also,  no  doubt,  prompted  by  a  desire  among  heathens  to 
claim  for  Juno  or  INIinerva  the  honor  of  that  inspiration  which 
had  predicted  Troy's  destruction. 

Such  appellations  for  Sibylla  as  Deiphohe,  Fearer  of  God, 
and  DemnphUe.,  Friend  of  the  [Common]  People,  were  merely 
Jewish,  or  Christian,  designations  for  the  character  of  her 
teachin<i;s. 


§v.]  ADDITIONAL   EEMAKKS.  447 

Further,  sundry  localities  were  eager  enough  to  claim  the 
honor  of  Sibylla  having  once  resided  among  them,  and  the  un- 
critical or  partisan  Varro  was  overwilling  to  recognize  tlieir 
claims,  though  he  himself  alleges  that  not  a  document  could 
BE  FOUND  admitting  identification  with  any  other  place  than 
ErythrsB.  This  tendency  to  claim  a  former  visit  from  Sibylla 
may  have  been  fostered  by  lines,  probably  from  the  Erythi'ieau 
production,  which  have  already  been  quoted  in  note  18. 

2.  In  Varro's  time  the  belief  was  still  nearly  universal  that 
the  Erythraean  and  other  Sibylline  productions  all  proceeded 
from  one  person  named  Sibylla.^^®  In  the  time  of  Tiberius, 
we  can  safely  infer  from  his  letter  to  the  Senate,  a.  d.  32,  that 
the  question  was  still  unsettled,  whether  but  one  Sibjdla  had 
ever  lived. •'-°  The  patrician  or  anti-Jewish  party  must  have 
found  it  for  their  interest  to  multiply  the  number  of  persons 
who  had  borne  this  name.  By  so  doing  they  increased  the 
apparent  probability  that  any  of  the  writings,  whose  authority 
they  wished  to  impugn,  might  be  from  some  second-rate 
Sibylla. 

The  advocates  of  Sibylline  authority,  whether  Jews  or  Ro- 
mans, must  have  found  it  for  their  interest  to  maintain  the 
existence  of  but  one  Sibylla ;  since,  if  but  one  existed,  her 
authority  had  already  been  recognized  by  the  Roman  Senate 
in  the  most  public  manner. 

The  aristocracy  and  their  adherents  were,  in  the  main, 
unfriendly  to  Judaism,  and  must  as  a  class  have  decried  this 
Jewish  Sibylline  literature.  Cicero  had  already  (see  note  99) 
suggested  its  withdrawal  from  the  public,  —  a  kind  of  suppres- 
sion which  was  afterwards  zealously  undertaken  by  the  aris- 
tocracy and  Augustus.  The  party,  however,  which  sided  with 
monotheism,  aided  by  the  official  dignity  of  Lepidus,  delayed 
this  imperial  action  during  five  or  six  years  ;^^^  and  not  only 
quotations,  but  also  the  documents  which  have  reached  us, 
show  that  the  suppression  could  not  have  been  thorough. 


1^^  See,  on  page  431,  note  86. 

^^'^  A  proposition  was  made  in  A.  T>.  82,  by  Caninins  Gallns,  that  an 
additional  book  of  Sibylla  sbonld  be  received  into  the  authorized  collec- 
tion. The  Senate  acted  on  the  subject.  Tiberius,  in  a  communication 
with  regard  to  it,  speaks  of  Sibylla's  books  as  having  been  formerly  col- 
lected and  scrutinized  "whether  there  were  but  one  or  several  persons 
of  that  name."  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,  1-2. 

121  See  quoted  on  pp.  165,  166,  Die  Cass.  54,  17;  Sueton.  August.  31 ; 
Tacitus,  An.  6, 12. 


448  SIDYLLIXE    BOOKS.  [XOTE   A. 

3.  The  supposition  advanced  by  some  writers  that  these 
SibylHne  productions  originated  in  different  countries  at  a 
date  some  centuries  before  the  Christian  era  is  contradicted 
by  the  fact,  that  the  edict  for  their  suppression  was  addressed 
merely  to  Italian  localities,  the  holders  of  such  documents 
being  required  within  a  given  day  to  hand  them  to  the  city 
pretor.  It  would  seem  even  that  the  portion  of  Italy  in 
which  they  circulated  must  have  been  restricted  to  a  moder- 
ate distance  from  Rome,  since  otherwise  a  compliance  with 
the  edict  would  hardly  have  been  possible. 

4.  The  verses  from  Erythrte  treated  the  thoughtfulness 
of  J^neas  for  his  parent  and  child  as  cvcre/Ses  (.pyov,  a  deed 
of  practical  monotheism.  The  common  translation  of  this 
Greek  word  into  Latin  was  inetas,  piety,  which,  to  a  monotheist, 
would  have  conveyed  thoughts  of  man's  relation  towards  God. 
Dnty  to  DIVINE  power  might  by  many  have  been  regarded  as 
overriding  obligation  to  the  Senate.  Patricians,  therefore,  in- 
terpreted the  term  as  follows  :  "  It  [justice]  towards  the  gods 
is  called  religion ;  towards  parents  [in  new  phraseology  1], 
pietv  ;  but,  in  common  language,  honitas,  good  disposition." 
—  Cicero,  Be  Partit.  22;  C/^/x  Bhefor.  1,  pp.  GOO,  601. 
"  What  is  piety  but  a  thankful  disposition  towards  par- 
ents T'— Idem.  Fro  Plane.  33;  Orat.  Vol.  4,  p.  571.  Com- 
pare citation  from  Cicero  on  p.  150,  in  last  paragraph  of 
note  23. 

The  Lexicon  of  Facciolati  and  Forcellini  quotes  no  authori- 
ties of  earlier  date  than  the  Erythrtean  verses  for  this  defini- 
tion of  piet3\  .Cicero,  in  whom  we  first  find  it,  was  certainly 
acquainted  with  its  Jewish  sense,  which  he  must  intention- 
ally have  perverted.  He  wished  (see  pp.  6n.,  150  n.)  to  rep- 
resent, that  man's  highest  obligation  was  to  the  Senate. 
Such  obligation  could  hardly  have  overruled  one  to  a  divine 
power,  and,  therefore,  he  assumes,  contrary  to  common  usage, 
that  piety  was  justice,  not  to  the  gods,  but  to  parents,  and, 
by  inference,  that  its  highest  manifestation  was  to  the  state. 
When  off  his  guard,  perhaps,  he  speaks  (I)e  Leg.  2,  8)  of 
piety  towards  the  gods ;  ad  divos  .  .  .  pietatem  adhibento. 
This  patrician  use  of  piety  or  impiety  has,  in  Greek  histo- 
rians of  Roman  aff^xirs,  sometimes  found  its  way  back  into 
Greek;  thus  the  complaints  of  Caligula  against  his  two  sis- 
ters are  designated  (Dio  Cass.  59,  22)  as  aaefSr],  a  translation, 
doubtless,  of  the  Latin  word  iiiipia.  Whether  such  use  gained 
any   currency  before  a.   d.    14,   may,   considering    the    state- 


§  v.]  ADDITIONAL   REMARKS.  449 

ment  of  Dio  Cass.  57,  9,  already  quoted  on  p.  7,  be  doubted. 
The  passage  in  Plato,  De Repub.  10, 13;  Opi).  Vol.  5,  p.  94  CD., 
mentions  aa-ijSna  and  cvcre/SiLa  towards  the  gods,  but  calls  mur- 
der of  a  parent  or  brother  avocrLo:. 

5.  After  the  Jewish  rebellion  under  Hadrian,  such  Chris- 
tians as  appealed  to  these  oracles  must  have  been  more  than 
ever  desirous  of  relieving  them  from  any  suspicion  of  Jewish 
origin.  This  was  doubtless  the  reason  why,  at  that  period, 
the  idea  was  first  advanced  of  the  Erythraean  verses  having 
been  written  by  a  daughter  of  Berosus,  the  historian  of  Clial- 
dsea.^^*  As  the  historian  lived  less  than  three  hundred  years 
before  the  Christian  era,  it  would  seem  inexplicable  that  his 
daughter  could  have  predicted  Troy's  destruction.  Such 
difficulties,  however,  were  less  observed  at  a  time  when 
chronological  tables  and  biographical  dictionaries  were  un- 
known. An  additional  difficulty  would  seem  to  be  that  any 
such  authorship  was  flatly  contradicted  by  the  Erythrsean 
document  itself  It  is  probable,  however,  that  only  its  doc- 
trinal portions  were  to  any  extent  copied  and  circulated  by 
Christians.  Of  the  remainder  a  portion  may  have  perished 
before  the  second  century,  and  still  other  portions,  now  extant, 
may  have  been  then  known  only  to  a  few. 

6.  The  present  confused  state  of  the  Sibylline  verses  is 
owing  to  a  variety  of  causes.  It  would  of  course  be  impos- 
sible that  verses  composed  by  a  variety  of  individuals  during 
three  centuries  should  form  a  coherent  whole.  Each  author 
had  his  special  object.  The  earlier  compositions,  or  at  least 
the  Erythrfean,  contained  acrostics.  The  revision,  moreover, 
of  these  documents,  at  the  command  of  Augustus,  was  guided 
by  political  feeling,  not  by  scholarly  research  or  honest  pur- 
pose. The  documents,  no  doubt,  suffered  from  it.  The  effort 
of  later  forgers  to  obtain  credit  for  their  work  by  attaching  it 
to  some  portion  of  the  Erythraean  composition,  brought  into 
contiguity  things  which  had  no  connection.  Denunciatory 
prophecies,  which  failed  of  fulfilment  at  their  appointed  time, 
were  supplemented,  or  refashioned,  so  as  to  adapt  them  to  a 
later  period.  Doctrinal  and  denunciatory  fragments  were 
likely  sometimes  to  circulate  separately  from  matters  of  less 
interest.      This   mass,  or  a  part   of  it,  was  sorted   by  some 

^^2  "She  (the  old  Sibyl)  is  said  to  have  come  from  Babylon,  beinrr  a 
daiighter  of  Berosus,  who  wrote  the  history  of  Chaldtsa."  —  Cohortatio 
ad  Graecos,  37. 


450  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

Byzantine  writer.  His  object  was  to  arrange  it  by  subjects, ^^^ 
and  although  he  must  have  done  this  but  partially,  yet  his 
effort  could  not  but  increase  the  previously  existing  disloca- 
tions. 

The  text  of  these  writings  is  in  many  cases  imperfect. 
Sometimes  this  may  be  owing  to  error  or  oversight  on  the 
part  of  copyists,  who  were  doubly  exposed  thereto  in  copying 
what  they  could  not  understand ;  sometimes  it  may  be  the 
result  of  efforts  to  infuse  sense  where  the  copyist  could  dis- 
cern none. 

7.  Any  verses  denunciatory  of  Rome  are  probably  not  ear- 
lier than  B.  c.  63,  the  date  when  Pompey  conquered  Judsea. 
Any  mention  of  the  Tenth  Age  is  not  earlier  than  a.  d.  19. 
In  some  cases,  however,  where  the  Tenth  Age  is  simply  an 
interpolation,  the  passage  in  which  it  now  stands  may  be  of 
earlier  date. 

8.  At  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  a  Greek  copy  of  the 
Erythraean  verses  would  seem  to  have  been  a  rarity  among 
the  Latins.  Augustine  speaks  [De  Civitate  Dei,  18,  23)  of 
having  once  in  his  life  been  shown  such  a  copy  by  Flaccianus, 
a  learned  proconsul,  with  whom  he  was  talking  about  Christ. 
Latin  copies,  he-  tells  us,  were  in  existence,  in  rather  lame 
poetry.  His  remark,  that  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  wrote  certain 
things  obviously  concerning  Christ,  applies  probably  to  these 
Latin  verses. 

9.  Virgil  represents  Sibylla  {jEneid,  3,  444  -  449)  as  writing 
her  verses  on  leaves,  which  the  wind  blew  into  confusion. 
This  idea  was  not  borrowed  from  the  old  Roman  tradition, 
which  represents  her  productions  as  having  been  brought  for 
sale  to  the  king  —  apparently  by  herself — in  the  form,  not  of 
confused  leaves,  but  of  books.     It  may  have  been  suggested 


^2'  The  Prefare  to  this  unknown  writer  will  be  found  in  the  Second 
Part  of  Friedlieb's  edit.  pp.  ii-iv.  In  it  he  saj's :  "On  this  account  it 
seemed  good  to  me  also,  that  I  should  assort  into  one  arrangement  and 
according  to  simii.aiiity  of  subjfxt  [Xo-yov]  what  are  called  Sibylline 
Oracles,  — hitherto  found  scattered  and  in  such  confusion  as  to  repel  (for 
^ipovras  read  6.ire\povTa's)  from  a  perusal  and  knowledge  of  them,  —  so 
that  by  admitting  more  ready  comparison  on  the  part  of  their  readers 
they  may  furnish  to  them  their  intrinsic  excellence,  making  plain  to  them 
many  necessary  and  useful  things,  and  effecting  a  richer  and  more  diver- 
sified woik." 

A  first  crude  effort  of  my  own  towards  a  comprehension  of  these  writ- 
ings was  an  attemjjted  arrangement  of  them  by  subjects,  histoi'ical, 
doctrinal,  denunciatoiy,  etc. 


§  VI.]  PATRICIAN   OPPOSITION   LINES.  451 

partly  by  the  later  statement  that  diligent  research  at  Erythrte 
had  brought  a  number  of  her  productions  together,  partly  by 
the  confusion  which  soon  manifested  itself  among  compositions 
of  this  class. 

§  VI.    Patrician  Opiiosition  Lines. 

Appended  to  Le  Maire's  edition  of  Horace,  Vol.  1,  pp.  5.59- 
561,  are  thirty-seven  lines  of  Greek  poetry,  which,  as  stated 
in  a  note  on  page  549  of  the  same  work,  ai'e  there  copied 
with  emendations  from  Zosimus,  2,  6.  They,  are  evidently 
intended  to  be  in  the  same  measure  as  the  Sibylline  verses. 
The  "  Secular  Poem,"  or,  to  use  a  translation  which  will  be 
more  suggestive  to  most  readers,  the  "  Centennial  Ode "  of 
Horace,  which  he  wrote  at  the  request  of  Augustus,  is  based 
on  ideas  contained  in  these  lines,  and  he  ascribes  these  ideas 
to  Sibylline  verses.  The  verses  are  in  so  far  predictive,  that 
their  directions  are  addressed  as  to  future  generations.  These 
lines  were  never  heard  of  before  Augustus,  nor  regarded  after 
him.  They  were  composed  evidently  with  direct  reference  to 
a  combination  of  events  existing  about  b.  c.  18  or  17,  and  it 
hardly  admits  of  question,  that  they  were  forged  in  the  inter- 
est of  patrician  ism.  The  objects  of  the  fabrication  may  be 
classified  as  follows  :  — 

Patricians,  as  we  can  infer  from  the  Centennial  Ode  of 
Horace,  wished  that  an  age  should  be  regarded  as  extending 
to  one  hundred  and  ten  years.  These  verses  supplied  Sibyl- 
line authority  for  such  an  estimate  of  an  age. 

Monotheism  caused  alarm  to  Augustus  and  the  aristocracy. 
These  verses  directed  that  centennial  rites  should  be  celebrated 
in  honor  of  heathen  deities.-^^* 

Corruption  of  manners  had  been  followed  by  such  diminu- 
tion of  number  in  the  births  of  children  as  to  awaken  alarm. 
The  monotheists  and  popular  party  urged  more  correct  morals. 
Patricians  avoided  this,  and,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  ode  of 
■Horace,  ordered  petitions  to  the  gods  that  they  should  rem- 
edy the  matter.  These  verses  furnished  Sibylline  authority 
for  such  jjetitions. 

1^*  The  ridicule  attending  this  effort  to  reinstate  sacrifices  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  remark  of  a  senator  named  Rufus,  who  "at  a  supper  liad 
expressed  the  wish  that  Cassar  might  not  return  safe  from  the  journey 
which  he  meditated,  and  had  added,  all  the  bulls  and  heifers  wisli  the 
same."  — Seneca,  De  Benefic.  3,  27. 


452  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A. 

One  of  these  lines  contains  a  direction,  that  in  the  specified 
rehgious  rites,  zeal  should  be  mingled  with  laughter.  This 
agrees  at  least  with  the  view  of  religion  supported  by  Augus- 
tus, and  was  opposed  to  the  more  reverential  and  sober  views 
of  monotheists. 

Horace  tells  ns  (Book  2,  Ode  15),  that  already  the  regal 
structures  of  the  wealthy  were  about  to  leave  but  few  acres 
for  the  plough.  Tiberius,  yet  later,  is  said  to  have  made  a 
similar  statement.-''-*  An  efficient  agricultural  law  might  have 
offended  the  aristocracy.  A  direction  in  these  lines  that  a 
hog  and  sow  should  be  offered  to  "  The  Earth  "  was  very  in- 
offensive to  THEM,  whatever  it  might  have  been  towards  Jews.^^® 

The  lines  conclude,  that,  if  these  rites  were  punctually  ob- 
served, all  Italian  and  Latin  territory  would  forever  remain 
subject  to  Rome. 

Several  questions  of  greater  or  less  interest  are  suggested 
by  a  perusal  of  this  fabrication.  The  promise  to  Rome  of 
perpetual  control  is  restricted  to  Italy  and  the  Latins.  Did 
this  mean,  that  the  "  King  from  the  East "  should  at  least  be 
kept  out  of  Italy  1  Or  was  it  but  a  ruse  to  create  the  belief 
that  these  lines  were  written  when  Rome  had  as  yet  no  pos- 
sessions outside  of  that  peninsula'?  Or  does  it  indicate  an 
existing  despondency  concerning  Rome's  hold  of  her  foreign 
conquests.     Compare  Trajan's  medal,  page  320  n. 

Horace,  writing  his  Centennial  Ode  in  a  language  which  was 
intelligible  to  the  wholo  community,  omits  any  mention  of  hog 
or  sow.  Was  this  the  result  of  accident  1  Was  it  due  to  his 
own  better  feelings  1  Or  was  it  a  deference  for  others  in  the 
community  who  regarded  monotheism  with  favor  and  would 
be  indiiinant  at  intentional  insult  to  the  Jews'? 


125  Tacitus,  Annals,  3,  54. 

126  Political  chicanery  may  have  invented  or  dictated  "The  Earth" 
as  an  object  for  propitiation  liy  the  sacrifice  of  swine.  If  monotheists 
derided  or  shunned  the  sacrifice  and  afterwards  complained  of  landed 
monopoly  as  a  reason  why  Italy  did  not  yield  grain  for  its  inhah"!tants, 
the  retort  might  be,  "You  will  not  propitiate  the  earth;  how  can  you 
expect  its  bounty." 

It  is  notewortliy  in  this  connection,  that  Virgil  in  theyl<lneid  (8,  4:5 -in, 
82-8.'))  chooses  a  sow  as  the  animal  which  sliQuld  point  out  to  his 
hero  a  site  for  his  city.  A  discijile  of  Judaism  would  have  shunned, 
rather  than  selected,  a  spot  so  designated.  Viigil,  who  borrowed  freely 
from  the  Krythrsean  verges,  wished  to  shake  off  from  his  hero  the  charac- 
ter of  a  monotheist.  Perhaps  tlie  same  motive  ]>n)mpted  him  in  attrib- 
uting to  iEneas  a  libertinism  copied  from  the  Odyssey. 


§vii.]  QUOTATIONS   BY   LACTANTIUS.  453 

The  Ode  of  Horace  mentions  (line  42)  the  "  chaste  ^Eneas," 
an  idea  not  extant  in  earlier  heathen  literature  and  opposed 
to  the  character  which  Virgil  has  given  of  his  hero.  The  only 
probable  source  whence  Horace  can  have  derived  the  idea,  is 
the  Erythrtean  composition.  The  fact  that  it  no  longer  exists 
among  fragments  of  that  document  may  be  owing  to  the  acci- 
dents of  time  or  to  the  revision  under  Augustus,  who  would 
have  had  no  scruples  concerning  its  erasure.-^-''  At  the  date 
of  this  revision,  some  years  after  the  Ode  of  Horace,  the  aris- 
tocracy in  the  name  of  Augustus  carried  matters  politically 
with  a  higher  hand.  In  the  present  case  the  question  would 
be  pertinent  and  interesting,  whether  Horace  found  himself 
either  swayed  or  compelled  to  recognize  a  moral  sentiment  in 
public  opinion. 

Another  noteworthy  expression,  "  Lenient  to  a  conquei'ed 
enemy,"  in  the  lines  of  Horace  (51,  52),  but  not  in  the  docu- 
ment on  which  they  were  based,  was  less  in  accordance  with 
views  of  the  aristocracy  than  of  their  opponents. 

§  VII.    Quotations  by  Lactantius. 

The  fabrication  in  the  third  century  of  Sibylline  Oracles 
which  predicted  our  Saviour's  history  was  likely  enough  to 
increase  heathen  distrust  of  any  such  verses  when  appealed 
to  by  a  Christian.  The  only  effectual  mode  of  closing  the 
door  against  expressions  of  mistrust  was  to  distinguish  be- 
tween what  had  and  what  had  not  been  written  before  the 
Christian  era.  One  Sibylline  document  admitted  unquestion- 
able proof  of  having  been  written  before  Christianity,  and  that 
was  the  Erytlira;an.  Lactantius  distinguishes  with  apparent 
care  between  his  use  of  this  and  other,  documents.  For  the 
reader's  convenience  a  table  is  appended  of  these  quotations 
and  references,  an  asterisk  being  subjoined  to  such  as  differ 
materially  in  language. 


^^  If  Augustus  did  not  succeed  in  suppressing  every  allusion  to  tlie 
MONOTHEISM  of  iEiieas,  a  probable  reason  is,  tbat  great  eftbrt  would  be 
made  to  preserve  what  bore  on  the  main  point  at  issue  with  heathens, 
namely,  the  existence  of  one  God.  The  passage  may,  however,  have  been 
preserved  by  accident,  or  replaced  from  memory. 


454 


SIBYLLINE   BOOKS. 


[note  a. 


Quotations  from  and  References  to  the  Erythr^an  Sibyl. 


Sibyl.  Orac.    quoted  by  Lactantius. 


Proem  1,  .■>,  G 
7 

15,  16 
2,1,  2 
3-5 
17-19 
46-48 

Book  3,  -i-iS,  229 
619  -  623 
618  (?  722  (? 


Inst. 


De  Ira. 

Inst. 


4, 
1, 


6' 
6 

"  6 
"  8 
"  6 
C.  22 
2,  13 
"  17 
7,  24 
"    19* 


Sibyl.  Orac.   quoted  by  Lactantius. 
Book  3,  74],  742,  783      Inst.       7,  20* 
762-765  De  Ira.  c.  22 

774  Inst.       4,   6 

787-793  "  7,2,* 

814-817  "  4,  15 


110,  IS."!  referred  to  Inst.  1, 14 
420  sqq.  "      "6 

808-813  "      "    6 


Quoted  as  a  Sibyl,  one  of  the  Sibyls,  the  same  Sibyl,  another  Sibyl. 


Sibyl.  Orac.    quoted  by  Lactantius. 

Book  3,  364  Inst.        7,  25 

545,  547-549     "  1,  15 

652,  653  "  7,  18 

4,  40-43,  45,  46    "  "  23 

51-53  De  Ira.  c.   23 

"         "    23 

"         "    23 

Inst.        7,  18 

4,  20 

"  7,  24 

"19 

De  Ira.  c.    2.3* 


158  -  160 
161,  162 
168,  169 

5,  107  - 110 
249 

281  -  283 
348,  349 
358  -  360 
420,  421 

6,  8 
13-15 
22  -  24 

7,  123 

8,  1-3 
47 
81-83 


Inst.         7,  24 

4,  13 

"  15 

"  "  18 

a  IG 

De  Ira.  c.    23 

Inst.        1,  11 

7,  24 


Sibyl.  Orac.   quoted  by  Lactantius. 


Book  8, 165 

205  -  207 
224 
239 

241,  242 
257 

260-262 
272 

273,  274 
275  -  278 
287  -  290 
292  -  294 
299,  300 
303,  304 
305,  300 
312  -  314 
326-328 
329 
377 
402 
413-416 


Inst. 


7,  25 

4,  18 
7,  19 
"  16 
"  20 
4,  16 
2,  13 
4,  15 
"15 
"  15 
"18 
"  18 
"  17 
"  18 
"  19 
"  19 
7,18 
4,  6 

1,  6 

2,  11 
7,  20 


Lactantius  makes  but  two  quotations  (hist.  7,  19,  24),  one 
of  a  line,  the  other  of  little  more  than  a  line,  not  extant  in 
our  present  collection. 

§  VIII.    A  Query  concerning  Bads. 

The  names  of  Sibylla  and  Bacis  are  mentioned  in  juxta- 
position ^'^^  by  Aristophanes  and  Plato,  and  this  would  seem 
to  have  given  rise  before  the  Christian  era  to  a  composition 

128  Aristophane.s,  Eircne,  lines  1117, 1120  ;  Plato,  TJwages,  Stallbaum's 
edit.  8,  p.  31)2  ;  Bohn's  trans.  4,  p.  406. 


§  VIII.] 


A   QUERY   CONCERNING  BACIS.  455 


under  the  name  of  Bacis  which  had  something  in  common 
with  those  under  the  name  of  Sibylla,  for  the  two  are  men- 
tioned more  than  once  in  conjunction.^^  The  Christian 
writers  do  not  quote  Bacis  in  behalf  of  monotheism.  This 
suggests  the  supposition  that  monotheism,  even  if  implied 
therein,  was  not  the  most  obvious  point,  and  the  one  most 
extensively  treated  in  its  teachings.  Dio  Chrysostom  refers 
to  it  and  to  Sibylla  for  moral  teachings. ^^°  Possibly  the  ob- 
ject of  the  work  may  have  been  moral  rather  than  theological. 
There  is  one  extant  document  among  the  Sibylline  verses,  and 
only  one,  which  affords  plausible  internal  grouuds  for  regarding 
it  as  having,  in  an  altered  or  unaltered  shape,  constituted  a 
part,  at  least,  of  what  passed  under  the  name  of  Bacis. 

The  lines  to  which  I  refer  stand  at  present  in  the  form  of  a 
quotation,  with  an  accompaniment,  between  two  —  apparently 
connected  —  passages  of  the  Sibylline  verses.  The  first  of 
these  two  passages  belongs  possibly  to  the  year  after  the  death 
of  Julius  Csesar,  since  it  contains  an  allusion  to  a  crown  in 
the  sky,^^^  and  is  free  from  that  asperity  towards  heathens 

129  Cicero,  De  Divined.  1,  18.  Compare  extract  from  Dio  Chrysostom 
in  next  note.  The  article  on  Bacis  in  Smith's  Dictionary  refers  also  to 
^lian,  V.  H.   12,  -25.     Txetzes  ad  Lycoph.  1278. 

1*^  Dio  when  driven  out  of  Rome  wrote  an  oration  concerning  his  flight, 
in  which  he  mentions  the  advice  given  by  him  to  the  Romans.  "In 
proportion,  I  said,  as  manliness,  integrity,  and  temperance  prevail  among 
you,  there  will  be  less  gold,  silver,  and  ivory  vessels,  and  of  amber,  crys- 
tal, perfume-wood  (?),  and  ebony,  and  ornament  for  women,  and  variegated 
work  and  dyes,  and,  in  short,  of  all  the  things  which  are  esteemed  and 
fought  for  in  the  city.  You  will  need  them  less.  And  when  you  attain 
the  summit  of  virtue,  you  will  need  none  of  them,  but  will  occupy  smaller 
and  better  houses,  and  will  not  maintain  such  a  crowd  of  idle  and  useless 
slaves.  And  —  which  will  seem  most  paradoxical  of  all  —  in  proiiortion 
as  you  become  truer  worshippers  and  more  holy  [Dio  used  these  words  in 
a  Jewish  or  Christian  sense]  there  will  be  less  among  you  of  frankincense 
and  perfume  and  crowns  [in  honor  of  the  gods],  and  you  will  make  fewer 
sacrifices  and  less  expensive  ones,  and  the  whole  multitude  maintained 
by  you  will  be  diminished,  and  the  whole  city,  like  a  lightened  ship,  will 
emerge  [from  its  present  sunken  condition],  and  will  be  more  buoyant  and 
safe.  And  you  will  find  that  Sibylla  and  Bacis  teach  you  these  same 
things;  inasmi^ch  as  they  were  a'])air  of  good  oracles  and  soothsayers." 
Dio  Chrysos.  Omt.  13,  \i  ;  Vol.  1,  pp.  434,  435  (228,  229). 

^*i  Dio  Cassius  mentions  among  prodigies  in  the  year  b.  c.  43  —  the 
year  subsequent  to  Csesar's  death  —  a  fiery  crown  with  sharp  points  sur- 
rounding the  sun. — Book  45,  17,  Vol.  2,  p.  314.  Suetonius  states 
(Aicgiistus,  95)  that  this  crown  was  visible  during  the  entry  of  Augustus 
into  Rome.  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  2,  -2*,  makes  the  same  statement,  which  is 
also  found  in  Velleius  Paterculus,  2,  59,  G. 


456  SIBYLLINE  BOOKS.  [NOTE  A. 

which  at  a  later  date  became  more  common  in  these  produc- 
tions. A  question  might  be  raised  as  to  whether  the  conclu- 
sion is  by  the  same  hand  as  the  beginning ;  also  concerning 
the  intermediate  piece,  whether  so  much  of  it  as  begins  with 
an  infinitive  be  a  quotation,  and  whether  it  were  placed  in 
its  present  position  by  the  writer  of  wliat  pi'ecedes  it.  If  so, 
then  this  intermediate  portion  is  probably  of  older  date  than 
B.  c.  43,  and  had  at  that  time  authority  or  reputation  enough 
to  make  it  worth  quoting.  For  the  reader's  convenience  I 
give  both  the  Sibylline  passage,  or  passages,  and  the  apparent 
quotation.  The  latter  is  intermixed  with  what  may  have  been 
a  commentary,  or  a  distinct  piece  :  — 

"  And  then  God  will  afterwards  show  a  great  sign, 
For  a  brilliant  star  like  a  brilliant  crown  shall  shine,  35 

Brightly  gleaming  from  the  sparkling  heavens. 
During  many  days.     For  then  [he]  will  show  a  victor's  crown 
From  heaven  to  the  men  who  wrestle  in  the  conflict. 
For  then  shall  be  a  great  contest "'  for  triumphal  entry 
Into  the  Heavenly  City.     It  shall  be  world-embracing,  40 

Open  to  all  men,  having  immortality  as  its  reward. 
And  then  in  inmiortalizing  conflicts  "^  every  people 
Shall  strive  for  glorious  victory.     Since  not  shamelessly 
Can  any  one  there  buy  a  crown  with  silver. 

For  God,''*  the  Impartial,  will  mete  out  to  them  universal  justice,  45 
And  will  crown  the  approved,  but  will  give  the  prize 
To "  witness-bearers  "  who  wage  until  death  the  innnortalizing  conflict; 
(To  the  chaste  who  run  well  the  race  of  purity 
He  will  give  its  d6\ov  prize,  as  also  to  those  who  do  justice  ;) 
To  all  men,  even  to  gentile  foreigners  so 

(Living  righteously  and  knowing  one  God, 
Who  love  marriage  and  abstain  from  criminal  intercourse), 
He  will  give  rich  gifts  [and]  hope  of  eternity  also  to  these. 
For  every  soul  of  mortals  is  God's  gift  ; 
And  it  is  unlawful  to  pollute  it  by  all  kinds  of  disgrace.  55 

Not  to  become  rich  unjustly,  but  to  obtain  a  righteous  livelihood. 

To  be  contented  with  your  own  and  abstain  from  wliat  is  another's. 

Not  to  speak  falsehoods,  but  to  maintain  whatever  is  true. 
Nor  yet  foolishly  recognize  idols,  but  constantly  honor 
The  imperishable  God  first  ;  after  him  your  i)arents.  60 

1*2  For  ai(hv  Alexandre  reads  dydii'.  The  former  may  liave  been  sub- 
stituted as  an  imiirovement  of  the  metre. 

^^'■^  The  triumphal  entry  into  an  ancient  city  was  sometimes  granted  to 
victors  in  the  atliletic  games.  The  writer  depicts  moral  victories  as  giv- 
ing sucli  an  entrance  into  the  Heavenly  City. 

iii4  Yor  xpt^<^T6i  TovTOLS  to.  read  Beds  avTols  irdvTa,  The  former,  an  ob- 
vious corruption,  contradicts  lines  38  and  151. 


§  VIII.] 


A   QUERY   CONCERNING   BACIS.  457 


To  do  constant  justice,  that  you  fall  not  into  'the  unjust  judgment.' 

Do  not  unjustly  reject  the  poor  ;  do  not  judge  by  external  distinctions. 

If  you  condemn  unjustly,  God  will  afterwards  condemn  you. 
To  avoid  false  testimony,  to  proclaim  what  is  just. 

To  preserve  chastity.     To  maintain  love  in  all  circumstances.  65 

To  supply  just  measure  and  handsome  over-measure  to  all. 
Not  to  jostle  what  is  unevenly  balanced,  but  to  hold  evenly. 

You  shall  not  swear  falsely,  either  without  another's  knowledge,  nor  at 
his  request. 

God  hates  the  perjurer  by  whatever  he  may  swear. ^^ 

Never  accept  a  gift  for  doing  unjustly.  70 

Not  to  steal  seed-grain.     Execrable  is  whoever  shall  take  it 
To  the  last  generation,  [causing]  waste  of  subsistence. 
Not  to  inftulge  unnatural  lust,  not  to  slander,  nor  murder. 

Give  the  laborer  his  hire.     Do  not  ojjpress  the  jwor. 
To  have  understanding  in  your  tongue.    To  restrain  in  your  thoughts  the 
hidden  word.  75 

Give  to  orphans,  widows,  and  the  needy. 

You  should  neither  wish  injustice,  nor  permit  it. 

Give  promptly  to  the  poor.     Do  not  say,  '  Come  to-morrow.' 

Share  your  crop  with  the  needy -handed  toilers. 

Let  the  alms-giver  know  that  he  [but]  lends  to  God.  80 

Compassion  frees  from  death  when  the  judgment  comes. 

God  wishes  not  sacrifice,  but  compassion  in  place  of  it. 

Clothe  therefore  the  naked.     Share  thy  loaves  with  the  hungry. 

Shelter  the  homeless,  and  guide  the  blind. 

Pity  the  shipwrecked,  for  navigation  is  uncertain.  85 

Give  thy  hand  to  the  fallen.     Save  the  friendless. 

Sufferings  are  common  to  all ;  life  is  a  wheel ;  fortune  is  fickle. 

Having  wealth,  hold  out  a  hand  to  the  poor. 

Of  what  God  has  given  you  offer  you  also  to  the  needy. 

Every  soul  of  mortals  is  alike.     Accident  causes  inequality.  90 

Never  use  derisive  language  to  a  poor  man, 

Nor  speak  harshly  [even]  to  a  blamewoithy  mortal. 

Life  is  proved  in  death.     If  a  man  has  acted 

Unlawfully  or  justly,  distinction  is  made  at  the  judgment. 
Neither  to  injure  your  mind  with  wine,  nor  to  drink  hnmoderately.        95 
Not  to  eat  blood.     To  abstain  from  idol  sacrifices. 

Gird  your  sword,  not  for  murder, i^*"  but  for  self-protection. 

Would  that  you  might  not  use  it,  either  unlawfully  or  justly, 

For  if  you  kill  [though]  an  enemy,  you  pollute  your  own  hand. 

Avoid  proximity  to  neighboring  ground,  lest  you  get  over  the  line.^^  100 

A  boundary  is  sacred.     To  overstep  it  causes  trouble. 

Righteous  possessions  are  profitable  ;  wicked  ones  are  a  distress. 

135  <'  Those  who  trust  in  lifeless  idols  when  they  swear  falsely  expect  no 
injury.  .  .  .  Not  the  power  of  the  things  sworn  by,  but  the  punishment 
of  the  sinful  shall  always  follow  the  transgression  of  wrong-doers."  — 
"Wisdom  of  Solomon,  14,  '29  -  31.  See  its  statements  of  heathen  readi- 
ness at  perjury  ccmfirmed  by  Juvenal,  Satire   13,  75-89,  100-108. 

136  Yov  <pi\ov  read  (povov,  as  in  Pseudo-Phocylides. 

1^  This  means  :  Do  not,  in  the  absence  of  fences,  plough  too  close  to 
your  boundary,  lest,  in  some  in.stances,  you  get  beyond  it. 
20 


458  SIBYLLINE   BOOKS.  [NOTE   A- 

Let  no  one  injvire  growing  crops. 

Let  strangers  be  honored  equally  with  citizens, 

For  all  shun  laborious  hospitality  because  105 

Strangers  to  each  other.     But  be  there  no  strangers  AMONG  YOU, 

For  you  are  all  mortals,  of  one  blood. 

And  a  country  has  no  reliable  abode  for  man. 

Neither  wish  nor  pray  for  wealth.     But  pray  for  this: 

To  live  on  a  little  acquired  honestly.  110 

Love  of  riches  is  the  mother  of  every  evil. 

Desire  not  gold  nor  silver  ;  for  in  these 

Will  be  a  two-edged,  soul-destroying  sword. 

Gold  and  silver  are  a  constant  bait  to  mortals. 

Gold,  chief  of  evils,  life-miner,  embroiling  all  things  ;  ^  115 

Would  that  you  were  not  to  mortals  a  coveted  evil ! 

For  on  your  account  are  strifes,  robberies,  and  murders  ; 

Children  hostile  to  their  parents  and  brethren  to  their  blood-relations. 
Neither  to  contrive  plots,  nor  to  arm  against  a  friend. 

Neither  hide  in  your  heart  a  thought  different  from  your  speech,      1-20 

Nor  change  according  to  locality  like  a  stone-attached  polypus. 

Be  sincere  to  all  ;  speak  from  your  heart. 

Who  injures  willingly  is  depraved.     Who  does  so  under  compulsion  — 

I  pronounce  not  his  fate.     Let  every  one's  purpose  be  right. 

Pride  not  yourself  on  wisdom,  or  strength,  or  wealth.  125 

One,  [namely,]  God,  is  wise,  mighty  also  and  of  many  possessions. 

Harass  not  yourself  over  past  misfortunes. 

What  has  happened  cannot  be  recalled. 

Be  not  ready  with  a  blow,  but  bridle  violent  anger, 

For  the  frequent  striker  has  committed  murder  unintentionally.        130 

Let  your  emotions  be  moderate;  not  aspiring  nor  arrogant. 

Tlie  dream  of  superfluity  is  not  good  for  mortals. 

Gluttony  leads  to  lasciviousness. 

Great  wealth  puffs  up  and  swells  into  insolence. 

Excessive  desire  causes  mind-destroying  madness.  135 

Excitement  is  anger :  unchecked,  it  becomes  vindictiveness. 

Excellent  is  ambition  for  what  is  good ;  evil  [that]  for  what  is  bad. 

Enterprise  in  crinae  destroys ;  in  virtue,  confers  honor. 

Love  of  virtue  claims  reverence ;  of  a  Cyprian  increases  shame. 

The  mild-dispositioned  is^^^  a  happiness  to  his  fellow-citizens.  140 

To  eat,  drink,  and  talk  in  moderation. 

Moderation  is  the  best  possession.     Excess  is  suffering. 

Be  neither  envious  nor  mistrustful  nor  calumnious, 

Nor  ill-disposed,  nor  an  unlimited  deceiver. 
To  exercise  discretion  ;  to  abstain  from  base  deeds.  145 

Nor  imitate  wickedness:  but  by  justice  supersede  [self]  protection. 

Persuasion  is  profitable ;  but  contention  engenders  contention. 

Trust  not  in  a  hurry  before  carefully  considering  consequences. 

This  is  the  contest,  these  the  strifes,  these  the  rewards, 

This  the  gate  of  life  and  entrance  to  immortality,  150 

^^  Literally,  "is  called."  So  in  the  New  Testament,  "shall  be 
called"  (Matt. 5,0,  19;  21,  i;;)  means  merely  "shall  be."  The  Hebra- 
ism is  a  common  one  in  Jewish  writings. 


§  IX.]  HYSTASPES.  459 

Which  the  Heavenly  God  has  established  as  the  prize 
For  the  most  righteous  of  men.     Such  as  gain  the  cro'vvn 
Shall  gloriously  enter  through  this  [gate]."  "* 

The  two  documents  in  fine  print  are  cun-ent  at  the  present 
time  under  the  name  of  Phocylides.  The  only  period  at  which 
it  is  probable  that  a  heathen  authorship  would  be  invented 
for  documents  already  in  circulation  is  in  the  second  century 
during  or  after  the  Jewish  rebellion  against  Hadrian. ^■'°  As 
the  two  are  attributed  to  Phocylides  in  an  intermingled  state, 
it  is  probable  that  their  intermixture  took  place  before  his 
name  wfls  prefixed  to  them,  that  is,  not  later  than  the  early 
part  of  the  second  century. 

In  conclusion  I  offer  as  a  probable  conjecture,  that  the  doc- 
ument called  Bacis  contained  a  predominance  of  moral  over 
theological  teaching,  and  as  a  plausible  surmise,  that  those 
lines  of  the  foregoing  which  speak  in  the  imperative  may  have 
belonged  to  it. 

§  IX.    Hystaspes. 

In  the  second  century  we  find  the  name  of  Hystaspes  con- 
nected with  that  of  Sibylla.  The  subjoined  quotations^^^ 
render  probable  that  the  former  document  was  of  Stoic  origin 
interpolated  by  a  Christian.  Justin  Martyr  cites  from  it  noth- 
ing about  Christ ;  and  the  remarks  of  Lactantius  indicate  that 
the  manuscripts  known  to  him,  or,  certainly,  the  majority  of 
them,  contained  no  such  passage.  The  name  Hystaspes,  if 
not  affixed  to  it  by  the  author,  may  have  been  added  after  the 
Jewish  war  under  Hadrian,  as  a  means  of  parrying  suspicion 
of  Judaism  in  its  teachin£r. 


139  Sibyl.  Orac.  2,  34-153.     In  line  61  for  ^wt/S'  read  /x^. 

1*''  See  other  instances  cited  on  pp.  337-342. 

1*1  "Sibylla  and  Hystaspes  said  that  there  will  be  a  destruction  of 
corruptible  things  by  fire." — ^  Justin  Mart.  Apol.  1,  20. 

"Take  the  Grecian  books.  Recognize  Sibylla  as  holding  forth  one 
God  and  future  events.  And  taking  Hystaspes,  read  and  you  will  find 
much  more  clearly  and  plainly  described,  the  Son  of  God  ;  and  that 
many  kings  will  array  their  forces  against  Christ,  hating  him  and  those 
who  bear  his  name  and  such  as  are  faithful  to  him  ;  [hating  both]  the 
expectation  of  him  and  his  coming. "  — Clem.  Alex.  Sfrom.  6,  (.5)  43. 
This  quotation  is  made  by  Clement  at  second-hand.  He  had  not,  per- 
haps, seen  what  passed  under  the  name  of  Hystaspes. 

"Hystaspes  also,  who  was  a  most  ancient  king  of  the  Medes,  from 
whom  also  the  river,  now  called  Hydaspes,  is  named,  .  .  .  foretold  long 
before  the  foundation  of  Troy,  that  the  Roman  Emjiire  and  name  would 
be  obliterated  from  the  earth."  —  Lactantius, /«si.  7,  l.i.     "Hystaspes 


460  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE  B. 

NOTE   B. 

MEANING  OF  CERTAIN  WORDS. 

§  I.    Words  used  hy  Jews  and  Christians. 

The  Jews  and  Christians  used  certain  words  in  a  sense 
different  from  their  acceptation  among  heathens.  Lexicogra- 
phers have  confined  their  explanations  wholly,  or  chiefly,  to 
the  heathen  acceptation,  and  even  as  regards  it  are  not  free 
from  error.  Further,  some  terms  used  hy  heathens  to  desig- 
nate Jews,  Christians,  and  monotheists  have  not  received  due 
attention.  As  a  partial  remedy  for  these  omissions  the  fol- 
lowing remarks  are  submitted:  — 

1.  6eocrej3iLa  among  Jews  and  Christians  meant  simply 
monotheism,  the  recognition  of  one  God.^     The  Cohortatio 

also,  whom  I  have  named  above,  after  describing  the  iniquity  of  this  last 
age,  says  that  the  pious  and  faithful,  separated  from  tlie  wicked,  would 
lift  their  hands  to  heaven  and  implore  the  fidelity  of  Jove;  that  Jove 
would  look  on  the  earth  and  listen  to  the  appeals  of  men  and  destroy  the 
wicked.  All  which  things  are  true,  except  that  he  attributes  to  Jove 
what  God  will  do.  The  statement,  moreover,  has  been  destroyed,  —  not 
without  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  demons,  —  that  the  Son  of  God  should 
then  be  sent  by  the  Father,  who  by  destroying  the  wicked  should  free 
the  good."  —  Lact.  Inst.  7,  18. 

^  Justin  Martyr.  "  Out  of  all  nations  .  .  .  persons  have  been  con- 
verted from  profitless  idols  and  from  demons  (i.  e.  heathen  deities)  to 
monotheism." — Dial.  91.  "Us  Christians  who,  .  .  .  acknowledging 
monotheism,  have  taken  refuge  in  the  God  of  Jacob  and  the  God  of 
Isracd."  — 7//«Z.  110. 

Clem.  Alex.  "Demon-service  (i.  e.  bondage  to  the  heathen  deities) 
destroys;  monotheism  saves."  —  Protrcpt.  90.  "Ye  have  grown  old 
towards  (or  outgrown)  demon-service;  j^ou  come  as  if  young  to  monothe- 
ism."—  Protrcpt.  108.  "The  bitter  slavery  of  the  tyrannizing  demons, 
.  .  .  the  gentle  and  man-loving  yoke  of  monotheism." — Protrcpt.  3. 
"Alas  for  your  ddedTijros,  non-recognition  of  God.  You  have  made  the 
heaven  a  [performer's]  t(>nt.  The  divine  nature  has  become  to  you  a 
drama,  and  that  which  is  sacred  you  have  rendered  farcical  by  [conceal- 
ing it  under]  masks  of  demons,  burlesquing  the  dXr^O^  deoa^jieiav,  true 
recogmtio7i-of-God  [that  is,  monotheism]  by  demon  servitude."  —  Pro- 
trrpt.  58.  "The  Lord,  in  his  love  of  man,  summons  all  men  to  a  recog- 
nition of  the  truth.  .  .  .  What  then  is  this  recognition  ?  [I  answer] 
monotheism." — Protrcpt.  85.  "The  Logos  .  .  .  has  said,  '1  am  your 
instructor.'  And  this  instruction  is  monothciwi,  being  thc^  leaining  of 
God's  service,  and  education  into  a  recognition  of  the  truth;  a  correct 


§1.]  WOEDS   USED   BY  JEWS   AND   CHRISTIANS.  461 

ad  Graecos  does  what  I  have  not  noticed  in  other  Christian 
writers.  In  addressing  heathens  it  uses  by  courtesy  the  term 
6eoae(Seia  in  their  sense  as  a  designation  for  their  behef.  This 
nse  of  it  requires  the  translation  "  God-worship  "  or  "  religion  " 
in  order  to  retain  in  English  the  same  expression  for  polythe- 
ism and  monotheism  ;  though  the  idea  of  visible  worship  does 
not  belong,  I  think,  to  the  original.  It  expresses,  as  applied 
to  the  Supreme  Being,  merely  recognition  of,  or  belief  in,  him. 
The  writer  referred  to  says  (c.  1)  :  "Since  a  discussion  is  be- 
fore us  concerning  the  true  [or  truly  called]  God  worship  .  .  . 
it  seems  to  me  well  to  inquire  first  concerning  the  teachers  of 
our  and  your  [so  called]  God  worship."  With  the  exception 
in  some  passages  of  this  courtesy  towards  the  heathens,  he 
uses  the  word  in  the  same  sense  as  his  fellow-Christians,  or 
the  Jews.  The  instances  of  his  use  are  appended  below, '^  in- 
cluding some  which  Otto  has  overlooked  in  his  index. 


guidance,  leading  up  to  heaven." — Pcedag.  1,5.3.      "If  he  be  brought 
before  tribunals  and  dragged  into  extreme  dangers  and  risk  every  posses- 
sion, he  will  not  give  up  his  monotheism."  —  Strom.  4,  69. 
"  Monotheism  confers  length  of  life, 
And  fear  of  the  Lord  confers  days." 

Strom.  2,  53. 

"The  sacrifice  acceptable  to  God  is  an  unregretted  renunciation  of  the 
body  and  its  desires.  This  indeed  is  dXijBqs,  true  monotheism."  —  Strom, 
5,  68.  "Therefore,  we  need  more  care  and  forethought  in  the  inquiry  as 
to  how  we  shall  live  perfectly,  and  as  to  what  monotheism  really  is."  — 
Strom.  7,  91. 

Josephus.  "By  what  lawgiver  we  (the  Jews)  were  instructed  in 
monotheism  and  the  practice  of  virtue."  —  Antiq.  Introduct.  2. 

Origen.  "We  do  not  cease  from  believing  in  God,  wishing  to  con- 
vert those  who  are  blinded  touching  monotheism."  —  Cont.  Cels.  2,  79. 
"Certain  evil  demons  .  .  .  wishing  to  lead  men  away  from  the  true  God, 
[do  a  variety  of  things  enumerated  by  Origen]  that  men  .  .  .  may  not  by 
inquiry  attain  pure  (purifying  ?)  monotheism."  — Cont.  Cels.  4,  92. 

Euseblus.  "He  (Justin  Martyr)  narrates  his  conversion  from  the 
Grecian  philosophy  to  monotheism."  — Ecc.  Hist.  4,  8.  See  also  Paul  to 
Timothy  quoted  in  Ch.  II.  note  22. 

To  facilitate  investigation  the  following  references  are  appended : 
Clem.  Alex,  frotrepf.  58,  70,  77,  85,  86,  89,  91,  100.  Pmdag.  1,  l.  In 
Potter's  edition  these  references  will  be  found  at  the  following  pages  and 
lines:  52,  17;  60,  24  ;  65,  39  ;  71,  9  and  25  ;  74,  6  and  14  ;  80,  10  ; 
97,  4.  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  6,  3,  1.3,  39  ;  7,  46  (twice) ;  8,  .59,  7.5.  Found  in 
Voh  l,on  pages  631  A,  639  F,  661  E,  728  A,  E,  786  D,  798  E,  Eusebius, 
Ecc.  Hist.  7,  32,  Heinichen's  edit.  Vol.  2,  p.  413. 

2  Cohortatio  ad  Grsecos,  1  (twice),  2,  3,  4,  5  (twice),  8,  9,  10  (twice), 
11  (twice),  13,  14,  35  (thrice),  36  (twice),  37,  38  (thrice).  In  Otto's 
edition  these  will  be  found  pp.  14  C,  A  (twice),  B  ;  20  B  ;  24  C,  D,  E  ; 
32  E  ;  34  D  ;  38  A,  D  ;  40  E  ;  42  C  ;  48  D,  B  ;  98  D,  E,  B  ;  102  C,  D, 
E  :  106  B  :  108  C  ;  110  B. 


462  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN  WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

The  antagonism  between  Jews  and  Christians  led  the  latter 
eventually  to  distinguish  Christian  from  Jewish  monotheism. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  this  took  place  before  the  rebellion 
of  the  former  under  Hadrian.  The  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  Diognetus  opens  as  follows  (c.  1):  "Since  I  notice,  most 
excellent  Diognetus,  that  you  are  very  zealous  to  learn  the 
monotheism  of  the  Christians."  Elsewhere  he  states  (c.  3)  : 
"  For  as  regards  the  offerings  which  the  Greeks  make  to  the 
senseless  and  dumb  [idols],  thereby  showing  their  idiocy,  when 
these  [the  Jews]  offer  the  very  same  to  God  as  if  needful  to 
him,  they  should  pi'operly  regard  it  as  folly  and  not  mono- 
theism." And  again,  c.  4  :  "  Who  would  regard  (their  pre- 
viously mentioned  doings)  as  a  specimen  of  monotheism  and 
not  of  imbecility.  .  .  .  Do  not  expect  to  learn  from  man  the 
secret  (or  mystery)  of  their  (the  Christians')  monotheism." 
c.  G  :  "  The  Christians  are  known,  .  .  .  but  their  monotheism 
is  invisible." 

Origen  iises  the  expressions :  Monotheism  according  to 
Jesus ;  according  to  Christianity ;  according  to  us ;  mono- 
theism in  Christ ;  through  Jesus  Christ  ;  of  the  Christians. 
As  the}'  mean  essentially  the  same  thing,  the  references  are 
put  into  one  group.  —  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  1,  27  (twice)  ;  3, 
8,  78,  81  ;  4,  32 ;  5,  33,  48 ;  6,  40  ;  Comment,  on  John,  13,  9.* 
Eusebius  {Ecc.  Hist.  8,  13)  mentions  a  Peter  at  Alexandi'ia  as 
the  first  teacher  there  of  "  monotheism  in  Christ,"  or  of  Chris- 
tian monotheism.  Compare  cognate  expressions  under  Nos. 
2  and  4. 

2.  ^eoo-e/Jrjs  means  a  monotheist ;  a  believer  in,  or  ac- 
knowledger of,  one  Supreme  Being.  It  designates  most  fre- 
quently a  monotheist  of  Gentile  origin,  and  appears  to  be 
identical  in  signification  with  the  participle  o-eySd/xei'os,  men- 
tioned in  No.  1 1  of  this  note. 

In  the  Acts  of  Pilate,  c.  2,  on  page  520  of  Thilo's  Codex 
AjJoc.  Novl  Tef^tamenti,  Pilate  is  represented  as  saying  to  the 
Jews  :  "  You  know  that  my  wife  is  a  monotheist,  and  inclines 
to  Judaize  with  you."  A  peculiar  use  of  the  word  in  the  same 
document  is  explained  below.* 

8  These  references  will  be  found  in  Delarue's  Origen,  1,  pp.  346  A,  B, 
452  D,  498  F,  500  D,  525  D,  602  C,  615  B,  662  R  ;  4,  219  B. 

*  The  Christians  in  their  controversies  with  Jews  and  heatliens  were 
debarred  from  ajjpealin^  to  tlieir  four  Gospels  by  the  fact  that  tliese  were 
]irof('Sseilly  written  by  (-'hristians.  For  controversial  pur]ioses  some  one 
forged  the  Acts  of  Pihite.     The  extant  manuscripts  of  it  imply  that  it 


§^] 


WORDS   USED   BY   JEWS   AND   CHEISTIANS.  40'. 


"  To  us,  therefore,  see  that  you  pronounce  only  the  Chris- 
tian monotheist  as  wealthy,  wise,  and  well-born."  ^ 

"  Looking  to  the  judgment  which  is  proclaimed  by  all ;  not 
merely  by  monotheists  but  by  outsiders."  ® 

"  What  never  hajjpened  before,  the  race  of  monotheists  is 
now  persecuted."  "^ 

Josephus  states,  as  a  reason  for  a  concession  by  Nero  to  the 
Jews,  that  "  he  did  it  as  a  favor  to  his  wife  Poppsea,  .  .  .  for 
she  was  a  monotheist."  *  Compare  John  9,  31,  quoted  in  Ch. 
II.  note  11. 


was  frequently  altered  and  realtered  according  to  the  controversial  wants 
of  different  localities  and  times.  Certain  witnesses,  who  testify  before 
Pilate,  are  in  some  copies  merely  called  men,  or  men  and  women,  whilst 
in  other  copies  they  are  expressly  called  Jews,  and  in  still  other  copies 
monotheists,  meaning,  douhtless,  of  Gentile  origin.  Some  Jews  probably 
would  only  listen  to  Jewish  testimony;  and  some  Gentiles,  it  is  equally 
probable,  would,  especially  during  or  after  the  rebellion  under  Hadrian, 
have  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  Jewish  witnesses.  Transcribers,  perplexed  by 
the  twofold  readings,  have  sometimes  copied  both,  so  that  the  witnesses 
are  styled  the  monotheists,  the  Jews,  or  the  article  is  dropped,  so  as  to 
make  it  read,  the  monotheist  Jews,  an  expression  which  I  do  not  remem- 
ber to  have  elsewhere  met. 

Thus  on  page  564  of  Thilo's  Codex  Apocryphus,  in  line  3  of  the  note, 
"Certain  other  of  the  Jews,"  is  quoted  from  the  manuscripts  marked 
" Mon.  A,"  whilst  the  "  Cod.  Vcnct.,"  quoted  in  line  16,  reads,  "Others 
again,  monotheists"  ;  and  from  "Paris  J)"  in  line  8  is  quoted  "Other 
men,"  and  in  the  text,  page  562,  line  6,  the  corresponding  passage  reads, 
"  Certain  other  men  and  women." 

On  page  536  of  Thilo,  in  line  13  of  the  note,  twelve  witnesses  call 
themselves  "Jews."  In  line  15  two  manuscripts,  the  Cod.  Venet.  and 
Paris  D,  are  quoted  for  the  reading  "Jews,"  but  the  latter  of  these  is 
incorrectly  cited.  It  reads  "monotheists."  In  lines  11  and  12  the  wit- 
nesses are  called  "the  monotheists,  the  Jews."  On  page  568,  line  5 
from  foot  of  note,  these  twelve  are  called  "monotheist  Jews,"  and,  in 
the  last  two  lines  of  page  535,  the  anomaly  of  the  foregoing  expression  is 
but  slightly  mitigated  by  an  enlargement,  "the  twelve  Jews  who  were 
present,  monotheist  men."  On  pages  530,  532,  in  the  text,  Annas  and 
Caiaphas  allege  these  twelve  to  be  proselj^tes,  whilst  the  twelve  allege 
that  they  are  born  Jews.  According  to  a  note  on  p.  532,  the  text  is  taken 
from  "Mon.  B,"  since  in  the  manuscri]it  on  which  Thilo's  text  is  based 
an  omission  exists,  leaving  onl}'  the  words  "  [from  being]  Greek  children 
they  have  become  Jews." 

s"  Clem.  Alex.  Profrrpf.  122. 

^  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,  14  ;  Ju.stin.  Opp.  1,  p.  48.  By  "out- 
siders "  the  ('(ihortatio  does  not  mean  Stoics,  since  heathens  would  hardly 
have  deemed  them  outside  of  monotheism.  It  means  heathens  whose 
names  had  been  affixed  (see  pp.  337-  342)  to  Jewish  documents. 

"  Eusebius,  Ecc.  History,  4,  -26,  Heiuichen's  edit.  Vol.  1,  p.  400. 

8  Antiq.  20,  8,  11. 


464  MEANING    OF   CEETAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

If  the  heathen  use  of  this  term  should  need  to  be  trans- 
Lited  by  one  and  the  same  expression  as  the  Jewish  or  Chris- 
tian use,  perhaps  the  phrase  "  God-worshipper"  would  present 
as  few  objections  as  any.  Thus  the  author  of  the  Cohortatio 
ad  Graecos,  in  addressing  heathens,  says  :  "According  to  your 
own  account,  when  some  one  asked  your  oracle,  '  What  men 
were  God-worshippers,'  you  say  that  the  oi'acle  spoke  thus;  — 

'  Only  Cbaldceans  and  Hebrews  have  obtained  wisdom, 
Venerating  in  purity  God,  the  self-born  king.' 

Therefore  .  .  .  knowing  that  Moses  came  from  the  race  of 
Chaldfeans  and  Hebrews,  ...  do  not  think  it  paradoxical  that 
God  should  determine  to  honor  .  .  .  the  man  who,  being  from 
a  race  of  God-worshippers  (i.  e.  monotheists),  had  lived  wor- 
thily of  the  God-worship  (monotheism)  of  his  ancestors."  '  Yet 
a  less  literal  translation  can  be  made  more  accurate.  The 
question  may  be  translated,  "  What  men  recognize  God  1 "  and 
in  the  comment,  the  man  who  "  lived  worthy  the  recognition 
of  God  by  his  ancestors." 

When  the  word  is  used  as  an  adjective,  it  retains  the  same 
sense.  In  the  Martyrdom  of  Ignatius,  c.  2,  Trajan  is  repre- 
sented as  thinking  that  the  only  thing  not  yet  subjected  to 
him  was  "  the  Monotheistic  Association  of  Christians."  ^°  Even 
in  cases  which  for  some  special  reason  demand  a  different 
translation,  the  sense  is  the  same ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the 
Martyrdom  of  Polycarp,  c.  3,  where  the  multitude  is  spoken 
of  as  "  wondering  at  the  bravery  of  the  God-beloved  and 
God-recognizing  race  of  Christians." "  The  analogy  of  the 
two  expressions  would  be  lost,  though  the  meaning  would 
in  other  respects  be  preserved,  by  translating  "  monotheistic 
race." 

3.  ©eocre/Seiv,  to  recognize  the  One  God,  to  monotheize.  "  As 
many  things  as  he  (Plato)  thought  proper  to  utter  after  hav- 
ing learned  them  from  Moses  and  the  prophets,  these  he  pre- 
fers to  utter  mystically,  making  plain  [however]  his  own 
opinion  to  such  as  desire  to  monotheize."  ^^ 

8  C.  11,  Justin.  0pp.  1,  pp.  40,  42. 
^°  Hefele's  Patrum  Apost.  0pp.  p.  246. 

11  Hefele's  Patnnn  Ajinst.  0pp.  p.  278. 

12  Cohortatio  ad  Gicecos,  c.  24  ;  Justin.  0pp.  1,  p.  74  E.  The 
author  states  in  cliapter  22,  tliat  l^lato  liad  learnctl  these  things  in  Egypt, 
and  was  exceetUngly  phrased  witli  "  tlie  things  said  concerning  one  God," 
but  deemed  it  unsafe  to  s^H^ak  of  Moses  to  the  Athenians. 


§  I.]  WORDS   USED    BY   JEWS   AND   CIIRISTIAXS.  4G5 

The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus  says  :  "  You  will 
next,  I  think,  especially  desire  to  hear  coucerniug  the  fact  that 
they  (the  Christians)  do  not  monotheize  after  the  same  fashion 
as  the  Jews."  ^^ 

4.  Ericrc'/Seia,  true,  practical,  genuine,  or  sincere  mono- 
theism ;  practical,  genuine,  or  sincere  recognition  of,  or  belief 
in,  the  One  God.  The  term  expresses,  or  implies,  moral  ex- 
cellence conjoined  to  monotheism,  more  frequently  and  promi- 
nently than  it  does  devoutness. 

Clem,  of  Alex.  Strom.  2,  45.  "  Practical  monotheism  is  a 
course  of  conduct  consonant  with  and  according  to  [the  will 
of]  God."  —  Compare  Strom.  5,  68. 

Origen  speaks  of  Jews  and  Christians  as  praying  to  the 
God  who  can  hear  and  see  all  things;  "doing  all  things  as  if 
done  in  his  sight,  and,  since  all  words  are  heard  by  him,  ab- 
staining from  what  would  be  oft'ensive  to  him."  ^^  He  then  adds, 
"  If  sucli  practical  monotheism,"  etc.  In  this  passage  he  evi- 
dently regards  these  virtues  as  included  in,  and  expressed  by, 
the  term.  Elsewhere  he  speaks  of  the  virtues  as  being  asso- 
ciated with  it  :  "  Urging  men  to  sincere  recognition  of  the 
God  of  all  things,  and  to  the  virtues  associated  therewith."  ^* 
In  the  former  of  these  two  passages,  1  think  that  the  stress 
of  Origen's  remark  concerning  prayer,  is  that  it  should  be 
addressed  to  the  One  God.  Prayer,  however  devout,  to  any 
other  being  would  not,  by  Origen  or  by  any  other  Christian, 
have  been  included  under  the  the  term  evaefSeLa.  Practical 
monotheism  seems  its  most  expressive  rendering.  Before 
commenting  on  the  second  passage  I  would  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Origen,  instead  of  using  the  terra  without  addi- 
tion as  it  appears  in  the  New  Testament  and  in  the  common 
phraseology  of  Jews  or  Christians,  adds  to  it  ct?  6eov,  towards 
God,  orets  orrrepl  to  Oelov  (Coat.  Ceh.  6,  33;  8,20),  towards  the 
divine  nature.  The  latter  expression  occurs  also  in  Josephus. 
Origen  wrote  against  a  heathen,  and  Josephus  expected  to  be 
read  by  heathens.  Each,  perhaps,  made  the  addition  as  a 
means  of  distinguishing  his  own  from  the  heathen  use.  The 
added  words  do  not  add  to  or  alter  the  signification,  but  they 
compel,  if  a  translator  wishes  to  be  rigidly  literal,  some  ren- 
dering which  will  permit  their  addition  in  English. 

A  portion  of  the  Jews,  and,  doubtless,  of  the  Jewish  Chris- 

13  C.  3,  Hefele's  Patrum  Apost.  0pp.  p.  304. 
"  Oricren,  Cont.  CrJs.  4,  '26,  p.  519. 
15  Origen,  Cont.  Ccls.  3,  .jO,  p.  480. 


466  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

tians,  understood  not  merely  moral  but  also  ceremonial  ob- 
servances to  be  included  under  practical  monotheism.  Jose- 
phus  mentions  some  priests  taken  prisoners  to  Rome,  who 
"  were  not  totally  unmindful  of  practical  monotheism,  but 
lived  on  figs  and  nuts."  ^®  They  wished,  doubtless,  to  avoid 
the  risk  of  eating  what  was  imclean.  This  Jewish  acceptation 
of  the  word  may  have  led  Justin  Martyr,  in  his  discussion 
with  a  Jew,  to  define  what  he  means  by  it.  "  Satiated  with 
war,  murder,  and  every  wickedness,  we  [Christians],  from  every 
quarter  of  the  earth,  have  each  transformed  our  swords  into 
ploughs  and  our  javelins  into  farm  implements,  and  our  farm- 
ing now  is  practical  monotheism  [namely],  justice,  philan- 
thropy, fidelity, —  that  hope  which  is  from  the  Father  through 
the  crucified  One,  .  .  .  adhering  each  to  his  one  married 
wife."  "  Trypho's  views  of  practical  monotheism  will  be  found 
under  No.  6,  with  which  compare  Paul's  remark  in  No.  5. 
In  occasional  instances  it  would  be  difficult  to  affix  a  distinct 
and  satisfactory  meaning  to  the  word.  Some  references  are 
appended.-^*     Clement  [Protrept.  22)  uses  evae/3eLa  voOw. 

5.  'Ev(T€/3i]<;,  a  practical,  genuine,  or  sincere  monotheist ;  a 
person  who  practically  recognizes  the  One  God.'^ 

Origen  speaks  of  "  those  who  in  the  midst  of  such  (evils) 
remain  practical  monotheists  and  are  not  rendered  worse."  ^^ 
Afterwards  he  mentions  those  that  "are  invited  to  the  feast 
of  the  practical  monotheist,  who  hears  the  Logos  teaching  as 
follows  :  '  Whether  you  eat  or  drink  or  do  anything,  do  all 
things  to  the  glory  of  God.' "  ^^ 

Any  Jews,  or  Jewish  Christians,  who  laid  stress  on  ceremo- 
nial observances,  regarded  their  performance  as  requisite  to 


1^  Josepliiis,  Life,  3.  Compare  Joseplms,  Against  Ajnoii,  2,  30,  quoted 
in  Ch.  IV.  note  6. 

"  Justin  Martyr,  Dialogue,  110  ;  0pp.  1,  p.  366  A. 

18  Sibylline  Oracles,  2,  315;  7,  73.  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  2,  Ifi,  70;  3,  P, 
.50;  4,  Ji;  (four  times),  -27,  6.j  (twice),  SI ;  5,  28  (twice),  38,  US  ;  6,  33;  7,  3,  44 
(four  times),  4(i  (twice),  f)! ;  8,  -.'O  (three  times),  27  (twice),  .34,  44,  73,  7f!. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Pa'Aag.  1,  87  ;  Strom.  4,  107  (twice).  Clement  of 
Rome,  1,  2,  1.5,  32.  .Justin  Martyr,  ApoJ.  1,  3.  And  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, Acts  3,  VI ;  1  Tim.  2,  -2 ;  3,'  K; ;  4,  7,  8 ;  6,  3,  r>,  n,  li  ;  2  Tim.  3,  5  ; 
Tit.  1,  1  ;  2  Pet.  1,  3,  v,  7;  3,  11.  The  terms  "good"  and  "practical 
monotheist"  seem  used  as  synonymes  by  Sirach,  12,  4,  7. 

13  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  3,  •%  s,  o,  25  ;  4,  %  08  ;  8,  73.  Sibyl.  Orac.  2,  332 ; 
3,  213  ;  9,  140  ;  10,  SK).     A<ts  10,  2,  7  ;  22,  12  ;  2  Pet.  2,  o. 

^'  Orit;fen,  Cont.  Cels.  8,  31. 

21  Oriyeii,  Cont.  Cels.  8,  32. 


§  I.]  WOEDS   USED   BY  JEWS   AND   CHRISTIANS.  467 

the  character  of  a  practical  monotheist.  Paul,  whose  use  of 
the  word  might  otherwise  have  been  misunderstood,  speaks 
of  Ananias  (Acts  22,  12)   "  as  a  practical  monotheist,  accoru- 

ING    TO    THE    LAW." 

When  the  word  is  used  as  an  adjective,  the  sense  is  similar. 
The  act  of  .^Eneas,  carrying  his  father  and  leading  his  son,  is 
spoken  of  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  (9,  149)  as  a  "deed  of 
practical  monotheism." 

6.  Evcre/ScLv,  to  recognize  God  practically ;  to  monotheize 
practically,  or  sincerely  :  "  As  many  as  monotheize  practically 
shall  live  again  on  earth."  ^^  "  Let  them  first  leami  to  mono- 
theize practically  as  regards  their  own  household."  —  1  Tim. 
5,  4.  Some  Jews  and  Jewish  Christians  must  have  understood 
it  to  include  ceremonial  observances.  Justin  Martyr  repre- 
sents himself  as  asking  his  Jewish  opponents,  "  Have  you,  my 
friends,  any  other  fault  to  find  with  us  [Christians]  except 
this,  that  we  do  not  live  according  to  the  Law  ] "  To  which 
Trypho  is  represented  by  Justin  as  answering,  that  he  admires 
the  Gospels.  "  But  we  are  especially  puzzled  at  this,  that  you 
who  profess  '  to  monotheize  practically '  and  to  excel  other 
men,  differ  from  them  in  nothing,  nor  does  your  life  varj^  from 
that  of  the  Gentiles,  in  that  you  neither  keep  the  fasts  nor 
sabbaths,  nor  do  you  circumcise  yourselves."  ^^ 

7.  'Ao-e/3eta,  Ai;crcre/3€ta,  ^AvofXLa.  The  first  of  these  words 
designates  non-recognition  of  the  One  God ;  the  third  desig- 
nates non-observance  of  the  Mosaic  Law.  The  first  is  ap- 
propriately rendered  by  "  heathenism."  The  last  sometimes 
means  heathenism  and  sometimes  monotheism  disjoined  from 
observance  of  the  Jewish  ceremonial  law.  Both  of  them  ai'e 
used,  not  infrequently,  as  equivalent  to  wickedness.  Paul  uses 
the  former  word  for  heathenism.  "  The  anger  of  God  is  man- 
ifested from  heaven  against  all  heathenism  and  against  the 
unrighteousness  of  such  as  hold  the  truth  unrighteously."  ^* 
Elsewhere  he  uses  the  third  word  in  the  same  sense  :  "  David 
expresses  the  blessedness  of  him  whom  God  accounts  right- 
eous without  ceremonial  observances.  '  Blessed  are  they  whose 
heathenisms  (more  literally,  LAW-lessnesses)  are  forgiven  and 
their  sins  covered  over.'  .  .  .  Was  this  a  blessing  upon  Jews 
or  also  upon  heathens  ] "  ^     The  second  of  the  above  terms 

22  Sibyl.  Orac.  4,  isc. 

23  Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  10 ;  Oj^p.  2,  pp.  36  A,  38  C,  D, 
2*  Rom.  1,  18. 

2^  Rom.  4,  6-9. 


4G8  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WOKDS.  [NOTE   B. 

means  "  spurious  monotheism,"  profession  of  monotheism  dis- 
connected from  its  practice. 

8.  'Ao-cySr/s,  8wo-o-£/3r/?,  avofjLos.  The  first  word  designates 
a  person  who  does  not  recognize  the  One  God ;  the  last  a 
person  who  does  not  recognize  the  Mosaic  law.  The  first  needs 
usually  to  be  translated  "  a  heathen."  The  last  may  mean 
either  a  heathen  or  a  monotheist  who  disregards  the  Jewish 
ceremonial  law.  It  also  had  a  special  meaning  as  applied 
after  Caligula's  time,  to  the  head  or  impersonation  of  hea- 
thenism.^® Both  words  were  sometimes  used  as  synonymes 
for  a  wicked  person.  The  last  might  be  translated  Law-Icss 
and  lawless,  accordingly  as  it  is  used  in  a  good  or  bad  sense. 

Origen  uses  the  first  word  in  speaking  of  "  heathen  fables 
concerning  .the  gods."  ^'  Peter  uses  the  last  when  telling  the 
Jews:  "Afiixing  him  [to  the  cross]  by  heathen  hands,  you  made 
way  with  him."  ^^  Paul  also  uses  it  in  the  following  passage  : 
"To  the  Gentiles  (more  literally,  to  the  Law-Icss)  I  became 
as  Law-Icss  " ;  ^^  that  is,  disregardful  of  the  Jewish  ceremo- 
nial law.  In  the  following  passage  both  words  occur :  "  The 
Law  is  not  operative  against  a  just  man,  but  against  Law- 
less  [men]  who  are  disorderly  ;  heathens  who  are  sinners  ; 
unconsecrated  [men]  who  are  polluted."  ^ 

If  the  first  word  be  used  in  a  heathen  sense  alternately  with 
its  Jewish  or  Christi;m  signification,  perhaps  the  term  "  unbe- 
lieving," or  "  unbeliever,"  accordingly  as  it  is  an  adjective  or 
noun,  would  approximate  the  twofold  meaning  as  nearly  as 
any  English  term.  There  is,  however,  a  passage  of  Origen, 
which  seems  to  demand  the  rendering  "faithless."  "Certain 
evil  demons  .  .  .  having  become  faithless  to  the  true  Deity, 
do-e/Jcis  TT/sos  TO  aXr]6(L<;  Oeiov,  and  to  the  angels  in  heaven."  ^^ 
To  this  unusual  use  we  shall  recur  under  No.  10.  Some  ref- 
erences are  appended. ^^  It  is  difficult  to  find  one  rendering 
suited  to  all  passages.  The  second  term  means  "  a  spurious 
monotheist." 

20  See  Vh.  VIII.  note  155.  27  Origen,  ConL  C'els.  7,  r,4. 

2»  Acts  2,  2:!. 

29  1  Cor.  9,  -21. 

8"  1  Tim.  1,  9. 

^'  Origen,  ConL  Ccls.  4,  02. 

32  Origen,  Exhort,  ad  Mart.  2;  Cont.  Cels.  4,  ."jO,  71,  92;  5,  21;  6,  .32, 
•"■•  ;  8,  20  ;  Epistle,  to  Diognctus,  4  (p.  306  of  Hefele,  or  474  of  Justin, 
Opp.  2),  with  which  compare  the  allegation  in  c.  3,  that  the  Jews,  hy 
.=iacritiriiig,  put  theni.selves  on  a  ]iar  witli  heathens.  See  references  also 
in  any  Greek  concordance  of  tlie  New  Testament. 


§1.]  WORDS   USED    BY  JEWS   AND    CHRISTIANS.  469 

9.  ^A(T€(3eLv,  to  ignore  or  deny  God,  to  be  heathenized,  or 
behave  in  a  heathenish  manner.  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  6,  29  ; 
8,  72 ;  Exhort,  ad  Mart.  7  ;  Justin.  AjmI.  1,  27. 

10.  2e/3eti/,  TTpoa-Kwa-v.  Tlie  former  of  these  words  means 
to  recognize  the  One  God ;  also  to  recognize  as  a  god,  to 
deify.  It  does  not,  I  think,  express  any  outward  or  visible 
worship  or  manifestation  of  reverence.  The  latter  word, 
which  means  to  bow  down,  expresses  visible  manifestation 
of  worship  towards  God,  or  of  respect  towards  man.  It  is 
used  to  designate  the  worship  at  Jerusalem  and  Gerizim,^^ 
and  also  a  servant's  reverence  for  his  master.^*  The  former 
word  is  by  Jews  and  Christians  restricted  exclusively,  or 
nearly  so,  to  the  Supreme  Being,  unless  when  applied  in 
terms  of  disapproval  to  the  deification  of  other  beings  or 
objects.  ^^ 

Origen  says  :  "  We  find  them  (angels)  .  .  .  called  gods  in 
the  sacred  writings,  yet  not  so  that  there  is  any  command  for 
us  to  deify,  and  bow  down  (instead  of  to  God),  to  servants 
who  bring  us  what  God  appoints."  ^^  Further  on  he  states  : 
"  It  is  manifest  to  those  who  examine  Jewish  views,  —  and 
those  of  Christians  correspond  to  them,  —  that  the  Jews  in 
obedience  to  the  Law  .  .  .  deify  nothing  else  save  the  God 
over  all  things." ^^  And  again:  "Whether  we  discuss  with 
the  Jews,  or  are  by  ourselves,  we  know  one  and  the  same  God, 
whom  the  Jews  formerly  recognized,  and  now  profess  to  recog- 
nize.    We  never  deny  him."^® 

Probably  the  Jews  and  a  portion,  if  not  all,  of  the  Chris- 
tians deemed  the  word  improperly  applied  to  any  but  the 
Supreme  Being.  In  the  Martyrdom  of  Polycarp  the  writer 
might  seem  purposely  to  avoid  its  application  to  Jesus.®*     So 

33  John,  4,  '20 -'22. 

3*  j\Iatt.  18,  2(;. 

^  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  15,  18:  "They  deify  the  vilest  animals." 
Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  7,  :a:  "If,  according  to  Celsus,  it  were  appropriate 
in  any  jiersons  to  deify  a  man  because  of  his  virtue,  [yet]  it  would  not  be 
reasonable  to  proclaim  Anaxarchus  a  god." 

^  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  5,  4  ;  compare  5,  10. 

^  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  5,  (-:. 

^  Origen,  Cont.  Cels.  6,  29. 

3^  The  heathens  advocated  burning  rather  than  bulging  the  body  of 
Polycarp,  "  lest  they  (the  Christians),  deserting  the  crucified  one,  should 
begin  to  deify  this  man,  .  .  .  being  ignorant  that  we  cannot  desert 
Christ  .  .  .  nor  deify  another.  For  to  him  indeed,  [though  ?]  .Son  of  Cod, 
we,  [merely  ?]  irpo^Kwovixev,  do  tiomagk."  —  Martyrdom  of  Poly- 
carp, 19,  Hefele,  pjt.  292,  294.  The  change  of  terms  suggests  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  writer  shrank  from  applying  the  former  term  to  Christ. 


470  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

miglit  Justiu  Martyr  in  the  first  passage  appended  below.'**' 
Whether  in  the  second  he  did,  or  did  not,  intend  it  to  be 
connected  only  with  the  Snprenie  Being  is  a  fair  matter  for 
question.  But  Origen,  notwithstanding  his  above  statements, 
applies  it  twice  to  the  Son  in  connection  with  the  Father,  on 
the  ground  appai'ently  that  Jesus,  though  not  an  object  of 
prayer,  was  the  medium  through  whom  Christians  addressed 
God.^i 


*°  Justin,  in  JpoJ.  1,  13,  says,  we  recognize  as  God  "the  Maker  of 
the  Universe";  after  amplifying  which,  he  says,  "We  honor.  .  .  Jesus 
Clirist  .  .  .  and  the  Holy  Spirit."  This  strengthens  the  first  of  the 
interpretations  below.  He  seems  also,  in  Apol.  2,  13,  to  avoid  the  use 
of  aej3e'iv  towards  Christ.     Compare  p.  353,  note  50. 

The  clauses  in  the  following  translation  numbered  1  may  have  been 
mentally  connected  with  each  other  by  Justin,  and  so  also  the  clauses 
numbered  2:  "[I.]  Him  (the  Supreme  Being)  and  [2.]  the  Son  who 
came  from  him  and  taught  us  these  things  and  the  army  of  good  angels 
who  follow  and  resemble  him  and  the  i'E(iI'Hi:tic  spirit  we  [1.]  recognize 
as  God  and  [2.]  do  homage  to."  —  Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  1,  u.  If  we 
suppose  that  the  latter  two  terms  apply  to  the  whole  of  what  precedes, 
then  we  must  understand  Justin  as  deifying  angels  and  the  prophetic 
s})irit.  Origen,  as  we  have  seen,  ignores  and  denies  any  deification  of 
angels  by  Christians,  though,  as  mentioned  under  No.  8,  he  treats  the 
demons  as  dae^els  Trpbs...d'y'yi\ovs. 

*i  "For  every  request  and  prayer  and  supplication  and  expression  of 
thanks  is  to  be  sent  up  to  the  God  of  all  things  through  the  high-priest, 
above  all  angels,  the  en-souled  Logos  and  God."  —  Origen,  C'ont.  Ccls.  5,  '. 
The  sequence,  if  I  understand  it,  tells  Celsus  that  when  certain  impossibili- 
ties sliall  happen.  Christians  will  pray  to  Christ.  A  different  interpreta- 
tion of  the  concluding  part  will  be  found  in  Norton's  Statewent  of  Ilea  sons, 
p.  233.  Elsewhere  he  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  Jesus  "did  not  say,  Ask 
me,  nor  simply  ask  tlie  Father ;  but,  if  ye  shall  ask  the  Father  in  my 
name,  he  will  give  it  to  you.  .  .  .  Why  should  you  pray  to  me  ?  Prayer 
should  be  offered  to  the  Father  only,  to  whom  I  also  pray."  —  Origen, 
De  Orat.  15,  pp.  222  F,  223  C.  Elsewhere,  he  says  :  "Wherefore,  to  the 
best  of  our  atiility,  we  by  supplications  and  requests  deifj^  the  One  God 
and  his  One  Son  and  Logos  and  Image,  ottering  to  the  God  of  all  tilings 
prayers  through  his  only  begotten,  to  whom  we  first  bring  them  with 
the  request  that  he  —  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  —  should  as  high- 
priest  present  our  prayers,  sacrifices,  and  supplications  to  the  God  over 
all  things.  .  .  .  And,  indeed,  we  deify  the  Father,  admiring  his  Son, 
[who  is]  reason  and  wisdom  and  truth  and  righteousness,  and  all  things 
which  we  have  learned  the  Son  of  God  to  be,  and  thus  also  [by  our  ad- 
miration we  deify  (0  ]  him  who  is  born  of  such  a  Fatlier."  —  Origen,  Ckmt. 
Cels.  8,  i;i.  A  similar  statement  occurs  in  Book  8,  -iO,  of  the  same  work, 
namely,  that  the  only  begotten  Logos  should  be  reiiuested  to  "  present 
our  prayers  to  his  God  and  our  God,  to  his  Father  and  the  Father  of  all 
who  live  according  to  the  Logos  of  God  " ;  but  in  this  passage  the  word 
under  consideration  is  not  found.  In  Book  8,  "(i,  however,  it  is  proba- 
bly a[iplied  to  Christ  in  connection  with  God,  though  the  sentence  might 


§1.]  WORDS   USED   BY   JEWS   AND    CHEISTIANS.  47l 

For  convenience  of  investigation  a  list  is  appended  of  some 
passages  in  which  the  word  occurs.  In  one  of  these,  indicated 
bv  an  asterisk,  o-eySw  is  used,  a  form  not  given  in  Passow's 
list.*^ 

11.  2e/3ojitei/os,  (^o/3oi'/Aevos.  The  former  of  these  terms, 
either  with  or  without  the  w^ord  "  God "  after  it,  designates 
a  nionotheist,  and  appears  to  have  been  used  almost  exclu- 
sively as  a  designation  for  Gentile  monotheists.^^  I.  am  uncer- 
tain whether  the  latter  word  be  identical  with  it  in  meaning, 
or  whether  by  the  latter  should  sometimes  be  luiderstood  a 
religious  nionotheist.**  Newcome  translates,  save  in  one  in- 
stance, with  attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  two  words  referred 
to  Gentiles. 

12.  Aoi'Ao?,  a  born  bondsman.  The  Jews,  as  is  well 
known  to  biblical  lexicographers,  used  it  to  designate  their 
relation  toAvards  the  Deity.  They  were  his  born  bondsmen.*^ 
Possibly,  however,  born  bondsmen,  trained  in  a  master's  ser- 
vice, may  have  been,  more  frequently  than  other  slaves,  his 
trusted   domestics  and   the  inmates  of  his  dwelling.     If  so, 


bear  a  different  construction.  In  two  passages,  moreover  {Cunt.  Ccls. 
7,  s,  and  In  Joan.  2,  21,  p.  79  D),  a  participle  of  acre^dv  is  applied  to 
Christ. 

*2  Origen,  Cont.  Ccls.  1,  11,  23,  2(5  ;  4,  26  ;  5,  4,  C,  27,  28,  35,  3e,  48  ;  6, 
4,  20  ;  7,  42,  51,  G2,  (U,  07,  (59,  70  ;  8,  10,  13,  14,  1(5,  21,  .')<,  &\  75  ;  Idem, 
Exhort,  ad  Mart.  46*  ;  Idem,  Comment,  on  John,  13,  i".  Clem.  Alex. 
ProtreiJt.  117  (10)  ;  Strom.  1,  (21)  lOO;  6,  (5)  39,  41.  Ejnstle  to  Diog- 
netiis,  2,  3. 

*^  "  Many  of  the  Jews  and  monotheist  proselytes  followed  Paul  and 
Barnabas." — Acts  13,  43.  The  Jews  stirred  up  the  monoth'-ist 
"women  of  rank"  ;  that  is,  from  among  the  Gentiles.  — Acts  13,  ',<). 
"  A  certain  woman  named  Lydia,  .   .   .  a  [Gentile]  monotheist.'  — Acts 

16,  14.  "  Some  of  them  (the  Jews)  believed  .  .  .  and  of  the  Greek  mono- 
theists  a  great  multitude."  —  Acts  17,  4.  "Therefore  he  disputed  in 
the  synagogue  with  the  Jews  and  with  [Gentile]  mouotheists."  —  Acts 

17,  17.  "Justus,  a  [Gentile]  monotheist."  —  Acts  18,  7.  A  monothe- 
istic proselyte  means  a  proselyte,  not  to  Jewish  customs,  but  to  Jewish 
belief  in  one  God. 

**  "Cornelius  ...  a  [Gentile]  Fearer  of  God."  —  Acts  10, 1,  repeated 
in  verse  2.  "In  every  nation  (that  is,  among  all  Gentiles)  the  Fearer  of 
Him  who  doeth  righteously  shall  be  accepted  by  him."  —  Acts  10,  35. 
"Men  of  Israel  and  ye  [Gentile]  Fearers  of  God,  listen."  —  Acts  13,  IG. 
"Brother  men,  sons  of  the  race  of  Abraham,  and  those  [Gentiles]  among 
you,  who  are  Fearers  of  God."  — Acts  13,  2(>.  "  Praise  God,  all  ye  his 
Bondsmen  [that  is,  ye  Jews],  and  ye  [Gentiles]  who  are  Fearers  of  him." 
—  Rev.  19,  5. 

*^  A  New  Testament  concordance  will  give  sufficient  references.  One 
instance  of  the  usage  will  be  found  in  the  preceding  note. 


472  MEANING    OF   CERTAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

the  Jewish  use  of  this  term  may  have  imphed,  not  only  that 
by  birth  they  belonged  to  Jehovah,  but  also  that  they  were 
the  inmates  of  his  household. 

13.  AaoL,  peoples.  The  use  of  this  word  in  the  singular 
as  a  term  for  the  Jews,  in  conti-adistinction  from  "  The  Na- 
tions" or  Gentiles,  is  well  enough  known.  In  the  plural,  I 
surmise,  that  it  meant  the  various  nationalities  of  Jews ;  the 
Jews  of  Italy  being  considered  as  one  people,  the  Jews  of 
Egypt  as  another,  those  of  Syria  another,  and  so  on.*^ 

§  II.    Terms  applied  hy  Heathens  to  Jews  or  Christians. 

1.  Foreign  Superstition,  or  Foreign  Rites.  The  Roman 
authorities  in  a.  D.  19  passed  an  enactment  against  the  Jew- 
ish and  Egyptian  religions.*''  From  that  period,  the  term 
"  Foreign "  superstition,  or  superstitions,  denoted  Judaism 
almost  exclusively.  Tacitus,  after  mentioning  the  action 
against  the  two  religions,  speaks  without  ex])lanation  of 
"that  superstition,"*^  taking  it  for  granted,  a|)parcntly,  that 
his  readers  woTild  understand  him  to  mean- — as  from  Josephus 
we  know  that  he  did  mean  —  Judaism.  Seneca,  referring  to 
the  same  disturbance,  says  :  "Foreign  religious  observances, 
alienigena  sacra,  were  then  in  course  of  expulsion."*^  Seneca's 
context  implies  that  he  meant  Jews.  Pomponia  was  accused 
of  "Foreign  superstition."  ^°  Claudius  is  reported  hj  Tacitus 
as  attributing  the  indifference  for  Roman  religious  customs  to 
the  growth  of  "  Foreign  superstitions."  ^^ 

*^  "A  crowd  .  .  .  from  every  nation  and  of  tribes  and  peoples  and 
languages."  —  Rev.  7,9.  "You  must  prophesy  again  to  peoples  and 
nations." — Rev.  10,  11.  "From  peoples  .  .  .  and  nations."  —  Rev. 
11,  !'.  "The  waters  .  .  .  represent  peoples  .  .  .  and  nations."  — 
Rev.  17,  1').  "  They  will  teach  all  peoples  and  all  nations."  —  Ascen- 
sion of  Isaiah,  3,  is.     Cp.  Ps.  of  Sol.  17,  .S-2,  49  ;  Fabric,  pp.  96fi,  969. 

In  tli(!  Siliylline  hooks  the  plural  use  of  this  word  occurs  in  Book  1, 
128,  149;  2,  100;  9,307.  The  first  two  of  these  instances  are  from  the 
Erythrtran  verses  and  have  reference  to  the  earth's  inhabitants  in  the 
time  of  Noah.  The  aiUlior  of  that  document  wished  to  convey  the  idea 
that  idolatry  was  of  later  date  than  Noah.  On  this  supposition  the  co- 
temporaries  of  Noah  were  monotheists,  though  witiked  ones.  In  main- 
tenance of  this  idea  the  author  needed  to  call  them  jieoples  rallier  than 
nations.  In  Books  8,  I  le,  9,  30.';,  the  word  now  stands  in  the  plural, 
but  was  originally,  I  susjiect,  in  the  singular. 

*■?  Tacitus,  An.  2,  8.%  quoted  in  Ch.  VIII.  note  8. 

*8  Ibid. 

*9  Seneca,  F.jnst.  108,  22, 

^  See  Tacitus,  An.  13,  :!-.',  referied  to  on  ].]).  8,  212. 

*i  Tacitus,  An.  11,  I.j.     The  term  is  licre  used  in  tlu;  plural,  but  it  is 


§n.] 


TERMS   APPLIED   TO   JEWS    OK    CHRISTIANS.  473 


2.  *A^€ot,  do-e/Scts,  atheists,  unbelievers.  These  two  words, 
towards  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  were  in  use  among 
the  heathens  as  terms  for  the  Christians. ^^  So  far  as  we  may 
judge  from  their  derivation  they  would  seem  equally  fitted  to 
designate  at  an  earlier  date  Gentile  monotheists.  In  deter- 
mining whether  they  were  so  used,  the  action  of  the  Jews, 
appended  below, ^^  implies  that  before  the  rebellion  of  these 
latter  under  Hadrian,  atheism  must  have  meant  Christianity. 
The  remarks  of  Dio  Cassius  ^''  pertain  to  a  still  earlier  date, 
but  the  application  of  his  phraseology  might  admit  question. 
I  suspect  that  he  uses  both  terras  as  synonymes  for  Christians. 

Notwithstanding  a  remark  of  Justin  Martyr, ^^  I  have  not 
found  the  term  dae/Jet?,  unbelievers,  applied  to  any  nation. 
One  such  application  of  the  term  a^eoi  has  met  me.  Celsus 
speaks  of  the  Seres  (and  perhaps  of  some  other  nations)  as 
atheists.^®     I  am  uncertain  whether  he  means  the  inhabitants 

probable  that  Judaism  alone  is  meant.  It  is  well  known  that  during  the 
anti-slavery  discussion  in  the  United  States,  the  pro-shivery  party  spoke 
of  it  constantly  as  an  attack  on  Southern  institutions,  when  obviously 
but  the  one  institution  of  slavery  was  in  question.  The  Roman  conserv- 
atives wished  probably  to  conceal  the  fact  that  Judaism  was  (at  this  date) 
the  only  foueigx  religion  which  they  feared.  The  remark  of  Tacitus 
quoted  above  shows  how  uppermost  it  must  have  been  in  their  minds. 

52  "We  are  called  atheists,  and  we  confess  that  we  are  atheists  as  re- 
gards such  gods." — Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  1,  G.  "That  we  are  not 
atheists,  .  .  .  what  sensible  man  will  not  confess." — Justin  Martyr, 
Apol.  1,  13.  "It  is  not  proper  to  call  a  man  a  philosopher,  who  testifies 
concerning  us  in  the  public  assembly  things  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand, as  that  Christians  are  atheists  and  unbelievers." — Apol.  2,3. 
"  The  whole  multitude  .  .  .  cried  out :  Destroy  the  atheists ;  let  Poly- 
carp  be  hunted  up." — Martyrdom  of  Poly  carp,  3.  "The  procon- 
sul .  .  .  tried  to  persuade  (Polycarp)  to  a  denial  [of  Christianity],  say- 
ing, '  Be  considerate  to  your  age  .  .  .  .say,  destroy  the  atheists.'  "  — 
Martyrdom  of  Polycarp,  9.     See  Athenagoras,  Lc<int.  4,  in  (bis),  14. 

Jews  and  Christians  designated  heathens  as  atheists,  or  without  God 
(Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  :;i)J,  31)5;  Ephes.  2,  12),  though,  as  used  by  Paul,  it  can- 
not have  been  a  term  of  reproach. 

^^  "Selecting  chosen  men  from  Jerusalem,  you  (Jews)  then  sent  them 
into  the  whole  earth  saying,  that  an  atheist  sect  [called]  Christians  had 
appeared." — Justin  Martyr,  Dial.  17;  Oj^p-  2,  p.  60.  The  date  to 
which  Justin  refers  must  have  been  prior  to  the  Jewish  rebellion  under 
Hadrian,  since  Jews  were  thereafter  excluded  from  Jerusalem.  The  Jews 
probably  did  not  use  the  term  as  one  of  reproach,  but  simply  as  an  estab- 
lished name. 

^  Dio  Cass.  67,  14;  68,  1,  qiioted  in.Ch.  X.  notes  29,  44. 

^^  Justin  tells  the  Gentiles  "that  all  men  are  unbelievers,  dcre/Sers,  to 
each  other,  because  of  their  not  deifying  the  same  objects."  —  Apol.  1,  2-i. 

53  Origen,  Cont.  Ce.Is.  7,  Cv^.  From  the  phraseology  of  Origen  in  c.  63 
the  statement  of  Celsus  would  seem  to  have  been  new  to  him. 


474  MEANING   OF   CERTAIN   WORDS.  [NOTE   B. 

of  the  country  vaguely  described  in  Smith's  Dictionary  as 
Serica,  or  whether  he  meant  the  Syrians,  wlio  had  long  pre- 
viously discarded  any  belief  in  the  heathen  deities.^''  By 
atheists  he  meant  simply  people  without  visible  objects  of 
worship. 

3.  Tevos,  genus,  race.  To  some  extent  the  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles spoke  of  each  other  as  two  distinct  races.  This  use  of 
language  had  become  so  well  established  that  the  Christians 
were  called  a  "  third  race."  Whether  the  term  originated 
with  themselves,  or  with  the  heathens,  admits  question.  Ter- 
tullian  repels  the  term  as  a  heathen  insult. ^^  Origen  quotes 
it  twice  (Cont.  Cels.  7,  39 ;  3,  S)  from  Celsus,  but  he  and  Ar- 
nobius  (Adv.  Gentes.  1,  l)  speak  of  Christians  as  a  nation,  and 
the  Martyrdom  of  Ignatius  {c.  2)  calls  them  an  association. 
Justin  Martyr  uses  "race"  in  its  previous  signification  to  dis- 
criminate between  Jews  and  Gentiles,  or  between  his  brethren 
of  Jewish  and  Gentile  descent, ''^  and  makes  the  Jew  speak  of 
Christians  as  "your  people." 

The  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  a  gentile,  uses  it  with  an  alter- 
nate,®°  thus  suggesting  an  absence  of  perfect  satisfaction  with 
it.  The  Martyrdom  of  Polycarp  pertains  to  an  occasion  — 
the  public  games  —  when  the  heatliens,  according  to  Tertul- 
lian,  used  the  term  freely.  Its  use  in  that  narrative  ^^  may 
have  been  borrowed  from  them.  Melito  also  wrote  to  a  hea- 
then emperor  concerning  persecution  and  may  have  adopted 


^■^  "See  how  the  Jews  and  Syrians  think  concerning  the  gods."  — 
Plutarch,  Dc  Stoic.  Repug.  38 ;  'Op]?.  10,  p.  346. 

^  TertulUan,  Ad  Nationes,  1,  7,  8;  Scorpiacc,  10. 

89  Dialog.  10,  23,  43,  47,  48,  80,  120.  Compare,  in  c.  122,  the  expres- 
sion, "lis  Gentiles,"  and  in  c.  43  the  obviously  similar  use  of  "?rc."  See, 
in  Dr.  Lamson's  Church  of  tlic  First  Three  Centuries,  the  fourth  division 
of  a  note  on  p.  82.  Justin  uses  the  term  "our  race,"  whirh,  if  he 
meant  by  it  tlie  Christian  communitj''  as  opposed  to  Jews,  would  not  have 
been  intelligible  \uiless  it  were  a  generally  accepted  title.  The  "  race  " 
of  poets,  of  jiainters,  of  historians,  would  be  a  compi-ehensible  expres- 
sion ;  but  the  ])hrase  "our  race,"  if  met  in  Gibbon,  or  Longfellow,  would 
not,  without  explanation,  in  the  former  suggest  historians  and  in  the 
latter  poets.  Justin  nevei-,  in  addressing  heathens,  speaks  of  "our race" 
and  "your  I'ace,"  nor  was  the  t<>rin,  as  a  designation  for  Christians, 
ever  so  established  as  to  permit  this  phraseology  towards  either  Jews  or 
heathens. 

^^  "I  .see  .  ,  .  you  are  desiroiis  to  learn  .  .  .  why  this  new  race  or 
profession  has  entered  into  life  now  and  not  formerly." — Epist.  ad 
Diognet.  1. 

''I  ^larlyrdoin  of  Polycarp,  3. 


NOTE  C]    DELATORES,  —  PROSECUTORS    ON   SHARES.         475 

his  phraseology  from  that  of  his  opponents.®^  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  in  one  instance,  addresses  his  hearers  as  neither 
Greeks  nor  Jews  but  Christians,  who  as  a  third  race  recognize 
God,  and  speaks  of  them  immediately  afterwards  as  having 
been  gathered  from  Greek  instruction  and  that  of  the  law 
*'  into  the  one  race  of  the  saved  people."  ^^  He  elsewhere 
uses  the  term  in  a  variety  of  senses  which  are  easily  compre- 
hensible.'^'* 


NOTE   C. 

Zi^'i^TOii;^^,  —  PROSECUTOES  ON   SHARES. 

The  above  title  represents  a  class  of  men  whose  legal 
authorization  was  probably  a  concession  of  Augustus  to  the 
popular  party.  Their  office  and  proper  appellation  have  both 
been  misunderstood.^  The  call  for  these  men  needs  a  word 
of  explanation. 

The  Romans  had  no  officer  corresponding  to  our  Prosecut- 
ing attorney.  If  a  senator  fleeced  a  province  and  pocketed, 
under  various  pretences,  the  jDroceeds,  or  if  any  one  plundered 
the  treasury  at  home,  there  was  no  one  at  Rome  who,  by  vir- 
tue of  his  office,  must  assume  the  duty  of  bringing  him  to 
justice.     If  the  plundered  provincials  wished   to  prosecute, 

®^  Melito's  words  are  "the  race  of  monotheists."  —  Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist. 
4,  2fi ;  Heinidicn,  Vol.  1,  p.  400. 

^  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  6,  41,  4-2.  I  am  uncertain  whether  iii  the  former 
of  these  sections  the  term  may  not  be  a  quotation  from  the  "  Preaching 
of  Peter."  The  use  of  the  term  in  Peter's  1st  Epistle,  2,  9,  might  easily 
prompt  a  similar  use  in  any  document  attributed  to  him. 

6*  Pcedag.  1, 14  ;  2,  32  (bis),  90,  120  ;  Strom.  1,  62,  GG  (bis),  OS  (tris),  71, 
72,  89,  llG,  1.50,  1.51,  1.55  ;  3,  20,  G9,  72,  97  ;  4,  91,  93  ;  5,  124,  134,  142  ;  6,  SO, 
88  ;  7,  35,  30,  73,  80,  88  ;  8,  18,  11)  (bis),  20,  21,  31  (four  times). 

^  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Antiquities,  one,  certainly,  of  the  most  reliable 
authorities  in  matters  pertaining  to  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  appends 
to  the  term  Delator  (p.  388,  col.  2)  the  following :  "An  informer.  The 
Delatores  under  the  emperors  were  a  class  of  men  who  gained  their  liveli- 
hood by  informing  against  their  fellow-citizens.  They  constantly  brought 
forward  false  charges  to  gratify  the  ava lice  or  jealousy  of  the  difTereut 
emperors."  The  Nevw  American  Cyclopaedia  (15,  p.  466,  col.  1) 
sa3's  :  "The  secret  police  of  Delatorefs,  or  spies,  was  rapidly  organized  " 
under  Tiberius.  Gibbon  (Vol.  1,  p.  98,  edit.  Phila.,  1816)  identifies  the 
terms  " Delatores "  and  "Informers." 


47G  DELATORES, — PROSECUTORS    ON   SHARES.    [NOTE   C. 

they  needed,  at  much  expense,  to  send  men  to  the  capital.  If 
citizens  of  Rome  wished  to  enforce  the  laws,  they  had  to  as- 
sume heavy  risk  and  expense  with  little  chance  of  success. 
Either  would  often  find  that  the  judge,  the  jury,  and  the 
criminal  were  almost  identical.  The  Senate  was  in  many 
cases  judge  and  jury.  A  member  of  it  was  criminal  in  the 
present  case.  Others  were  criminals  in  similar  past  cases. 
Othex's  hoped  to  be  criminal  by  filling  their  pockets  in  future. 
Those  who  needed  no  plunder  on  their  own  account,  had 
plenty  of  needy  relatives,  friends,  or  dependents  who  were  to 
be  provided  for  at  public  expense.^  To  procure  justice  was 
almost  hopeless. 

Under  these  circumstances  a  crude  substitute  was  provided 
for  our  present  prosecuting  officers.  It  was  enacted  in  the 
time  of  Augustus  that  any  one  who  prosecuted  a  given  class 
of  criminals  to  conviction  should  have  a  share,  probably  one 
half,  of  the  recovered  forfeiture.^  Not  an  instance  occurs  in 
existing  records  of  a  trial  under  this  law  during  the  reign  of 
Augustus.  This  and  subsequent  opposition  to  the  law  on  the 
part  of  the  aristocracy  render  probable  that  Augustus,  his 
advisers,  and  his  —  in  behalf  of  conservatism  —  expurgated 
Senate,  were  more  anxious  to  have  the  law  a  dead  letter  than 
to  have  it  in  force,  that  its  enactment  was  a  concession  to 
public  opinion.  As  the  Senate  under  Augustus  adopted  the 
plan  of  secret  sessions,'*  thus  excluding  to  the  uttermost  out- 
side influence  and  public  opinion,  a  Delator  could,  at  that 
date,  as  little  have  accomplished  by  its  verdict  the  conviction 
of  a  senator,  as  by  going  into  a  secret  conclave  of  robbers, 
he  could  have  obtained  sentence  against  a  comrade.     In  fact, 

2  See  Cicero's  remark  to  his  brother  in  Ch.  VII.  conclusion  of  note  18. 

3  The  provision  concerning  Dclatores  was  (Sueton.  Nero,  10)  part  of 
the  Lex  Papia,  which  statute  was  enacted  in  the  time  of  Augustus. 
Nero  reduced  the  sliare  of  a  Delator  (Sueton.  Nero,  10)  to  one  fourth,  so 
that  it  must  originally  have  exceeded  that  amount.  Frontinus,  in  his 
work  on  Roman  Aqueducts  (127),  quotes  a  law  of  the  year  u.  c.  11,  which 
fixed  a  penalty  of  ten  thousand  sesterces  for  certain  interference  with  or 
injury  to  aqueducts,  one  half  of  which  should  be  paid  to  the  accuser,  ac- 
cusatori,  by  whose  exertions  especially  the  offender  should  be  convicted. 
In  the  year  A.  d.  24,  prior  to  Nero's  reduction  of  a  Delator  s  reward, 
Lepidus  advocated  giving  (Tacitus,  An.  4,  -io)  the  fourth  of  a  condemned 
person's  property  to  the  accuser,  aecnsatori,  "  as  the  law  re(iuired."  A 
probable  explanation  of  this  seeming  discrepance  is,  that  in  offences 
against  the  provinces  the  prosecutor's  reward  may  have  been  one  fourth, 
and  in  oflences  against  Rome  or  its  citizens  one  half. 

*  See  Ch.  V.  note  59. 


NOTE  C]      DELATOEES,  —  PKOSECUTORS   OX   SHARES.        477 

permission  seems  to  have  been  needed  from  the  prince,  as  pre- 
siding officer  of  the  Senate,  before  an  accusation  could  be 
brought  before  it,  at  least  if  against  its  members.^  This  per- 
mission Augustus  would  have  been  slow  to  give. 

Under  his  successor  matters  were  in  some  respects  different. 
Tiberius  was  not  merely  honest,  but  laboriously  faithful  in  his 
efforts  to  promote  justice.  Provincial  questions  were  heard 
with  open  doors,  and  with  opportunity  for  all  sides  to  be 
heard.  He  would  not  have  interposed  to  screen  even  a  per- 
sonal friend,  had  one  proved  delinquent,  nor  to  prevent  the 
trial  of  an  innocent  one  if  his  conduct  had  called  for  exami- 
nation and  proof. 

Opportunity  for  prosecution  implied  not  merely  that  a 
right-minded  man  could  aid  justice,  but  —  as  the  prosecutor 
shared  the  forfeiture  —  that  au  unprincipled  man  could  fill 
his  own  pocket.  Under  these  circumstances  a  class  of  men 
sprung  up  who  made  prosecution  a  trade.  No  such  trade  or 
vocation  exists  at  present,  yet  a  study  of  legislative  bodies 
would  throw  considerable  light  on  the  methods  whereby  these 
men  operated.  Some  of  our  States  prohibit,  by  their  consti- 
tutions, special  legislation,  and  others  do  not.  Among  the 
legislatures  of  these  latter  some  have  the  dispensation  of 
valuable  corporate  privileges.  This  has  given  rise  to  an  insti- 
tution known  as  the  "Lobby,"  a  self-constituted  outside  body 
which  by  its  influence  over  individual  members  can  delay, 
prevent,  or  hurry  legislation.  Some  of  its  appliances  are 
legitimate  ;  others  are  corrupt.  The  Delatores  had  facilities 
unknown  to  the  Lobby.  The  Senate  upon  which  they  were, 
in  many  cases  at  least,  to  operate,®  consisted  largely  of  indi- 

6  When  Vespasian  became  emperor,  and  before  lie  reached  Rome,  the 
Senate,  according  to  Tacitus  {Hist.  4, 40),  asked  his  son  Domitian  for  the 
journals  of  the  preceding  jninces,  that  they  might  know  whom  each  one 
"had  asked  the  privilege  of  accnsing."  It  would  seem  also  from  the  An- 
nals of  Tacitus  (2,  28)  that  in  A.  D.  16  the  permission  of  Tiberius  was 
necessarj'  to  a  prosecutor.  Tiberius  must  have  gi-anted  it,  though  he  re- 
fused any  personal  communication  with  the  prosecutor,  and  seems  neither 
to  have  sympathized  with  nor  approved  the  prosecution. 

^  I  am  unaware  whether  Roman  law  discriminated  clearly  between 
cases  within  the  jurisdiction  of  courts  and  those  reserved  for  the  Senate. 
Considering  tlie  manner  in  which  that  law  grew  up,  such  accurate  dis- 
crimination would  be  very  improbable.  Pkosecutors  on  Shares,  if 
unprincipled  and  unbribed,  selected  naturally  for  their  victims,  not  the 
impoverished,  but  the  wealthy,  and  had  therefore  chiefly  to  deal  with 
the  privileged  classes,  tlie  senators  and  knights,  or  with  cases  affecting 
the  rights  or  privileges  of  communities. 


478        DELATORES,  —  PEOSECUTOES    ON    SHAKES.      [NOTE   C. 

viduals  who  had,  directly  or  indirectly,  filled  their  pockets  at 
public  expense.  They  were  legally  subject  to  prosecution, 
and  not  a  few  among  them  could  probably,  by  threats  of  an 
action  against  themselves,  be  intimidated  into  voting  the 
condemnation  of  another.  In  the  courts  also  a  prosecutor 
would  soon  learn  whom  to  approach  by  fear  and  whom  by 
favors.  The  Court  of  One  Hundred  must  have  had  not  a  few 
members  accessible  in  one  or  both  of  these  ways. 

Public  prosecution  was  not  the  only  means  known  to  the 
Delatores  of  acquiring  wealth.  To  suppose  that  they  did 
not  understand  levying  black-mail  would  be  to  underrate  en- 
tirely their  ability  or  unscrupulousness.  "We  have  at  least 
one  record  of  their  doings  in  this  direction;'^  but,  even  with- 
out this,  an  ordinary  knowledge  of  human  nature  justifies  the 
inference  that  many  whom  they  selected  as  victims  would  deem 
it  cheaper  to  buy  them  off  than  to  fight  them.  The  extent 
to  which  moral  principle  was  ignored  by  multitudes,  whether 
of  native  Romans  or  of  adventurers  pouring  into  the  city, 
must  have  rendered  easy  the  manufacture  of  fraudulent  evi- 
dence, so  that  an  able  and  unscrupulous  "  Prosecutor,"  with 
a  gang  of  well-trained  followers  at  his  bidding,  would  have 
found  few  individuals  competent  to  cope  with  him.  The  less 
adroit,  the  less  wealthy,  and,  it  may  be,  also  the  less  unscru- 
pulous, who  became  Prosecutors,  found  themselves  swept  out 
of  the  way,^  perhaps  by  combinations  of  those  whom  they  had 
threatened,  perhaps  by  the  jealovisy  of  other  Delatores,  who 
wished  the  field  for  themselves. 

In  a  community  whose  public  affiiirs  are  managed  without 
proper  intelligence,  and  still  more  without  moral  sense,  the 

■^  In  the  time  of  Claudius,  A.  i).  47,  a  Roman  knight,  named  Saniius, 
paid  to  the  notorious  |)rosecutor  Suilius,  four  hundred  thousand  sesterces 
(Tacitus,  Aii^.  11,  .").  This  black-mail,  disguised  as  an  advocate's  fee, 
amounted  to  %  ] 5,000  or  $  16,000,  — a  sum  worth  much  more  then  than 
now.  It  proved  insufficient  for  the  Delator  s  rapacity.  He  must  have 
attempted  to  extort  more,  for  Tacitus  tells  us  in  the  ])assage  already  re- 
ferred to,  that  Sannus,  "having  discerned  the  double-dealing  [of  Suilius], 
fell  on  his  sword  in  the  latter's  house."  Kot  a  few  senators,  proliably, 
had  been  fleeced  in  the  same  way,  for  "The  Fathers"  demanded,  imme- 
diately, th(!  revival  of  an  old  law,  "that  no  one  should  receive  money  or 
gift  for  j)leading  a  cause."  A  well-bribed  Delator  may  have  naturally 
been  expected  to  keep  off  others  of  his  own  class,  between  whom  and  him- 
self there  was  not  unlikely  to  be  an  understanding. 

*  "In  ])roportion  as  an  accuser  was  districtior,  more  fierce,  lie  became 
as  [it  were]  sncro  snnctufi,  consecrated  [against  attnck] ;  the  Icves,  ignohilcs, 
moderate  and  less  known,  were  [>unished."  —  Tacitus,  yln.  4,  3'J. 


NOTE  C]   DELATORES, — PKOSECUTOES    ON    SHAKES.  479 

lot,  whether  of  a  citizen  or  of  an  official,  too  often  requires 
him  to  choose  between  extremes,  either  of  which  he  would 
gladly  avoid.®  Tiberius,  who  honestly  wished  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  could  not  escape  this  lot.  Early  in  his  reign 
he  must  have  realized  tlie  objections  to  having  "  prosecutors 
on  shares."  In  a.  d.  1G,  one  whom  he  seems  to  have  appre- 
ciated ^°  was  driven  by  a  Delator  to  suicide.  In  a.  d.  20,  as 
already  narrated,  his  trusted  friend  Piso  was  also  driven  to 
suicide,  though  in  his  case  a  senatorial  combination  merely 
used  Delatores  as  its  instruments.  In  a.  d.  24,  two  of  his 
intimate  friends  were  subjected  to  an  accusation,  ^^  but  were 
both  acquitted.  In  the  year  27,  Varus,  one  of  his  relatives 
or  family  connections,  was  only  saved  by  the  Senate  defer- 
ring his  trial.^^  During  his  reign  a  Delator  was  punished ^^ 
in  the  year  32  ;  several  principal  ones  were  put  to  death  ^^  in 
33.  Two  who  had  accepted  a  bribe  for  dropping  a  prosecution 
were  interdicted  fire  and  water  ^^  in  the  year  34,  and  another 
was  banished  from  Rome.^®  Yet  in  the  year  24,  after  two  of 
his  friends  had  been  wrongfully  prosecuted,  he  interposed  to 
prevent  a  limited  abolition  of  prosecutors'  perquisites."     He 

^  Professor  Smyth  in  liis  Lectures  on  Modern  History  (2,  pp.  165,  166, 
Am.  edit.)  proposes  to  his  pupils  as  a  question  difficult  to  solve,  the  an- 
swer which  ought  to  have  been  returned  l\y  the  English  nation  after  a  . 
dissolution  of  Parliament  in  1710  under  Queen  Anne.  A  thoughtful 
reader  will  repeatedly  in  Roman  history  be  puzzled  by  the  question  how, 
in  the  general  absence  of  any  developed  moral  sense,  human  rights 
could  be  best  secured. 

1°  After  accusation  had  been  brought  against  Libo,  Tiberius  invested 
him  with  the  pretorship,  and  invited  him  to  his  table  (Tacitus,  An.  2,  28), 
and,  subseipiently  to  his  suicide,  stated  that  he  would  himself  have  inter- 
ceded for  him  to  prevent  capital  punishment.  Tacitus,  as  usual,  distorts 
his  narrative  by  attributing,  though  without  alleged  evidence,  duplicity 
to  Tiberius. 

11  Tacitus,  An.  A,  29.  » 

12  Tacitus,  An.  4,  UG. 

13  Tacitus,  An.  6,  4. 

1*  Tiberius  "commanded  the  most  famous  of  the  [professional]  prose- 
cutors to  be  put  to  death  on  one  [and  the  same]  day. "  —  Dio  Cass.  58, 21. 
Senatorial  crimes  are  so  frequently  attributed  by  patrician  writers  to  Ti- 
berius, as  to  create  uncertainty  whether  these  prosecutoi-s  may  not  have 
been  acting  for  the  popular  party  against  the  Senate,  and  have  been  exe- 
cuted by  it. 

1*  Tacitus,  An.  6,  30. 

16  Ibid. 

1"  The  circumstances  of  the  above  action  were  as  follows :  A  man 
named  Vibius  Serenus  had  during  his  proconsulship  in  farther  Spain 
been  guilty  of  violence  and  brutality,  for  which  in  A.  D.  23  he  was  ban- 


480      DEL  AT  ORES,  —  PROSECUTORS   OX   SHARES.      [NOTE   C. 

must  have  seen  little  hope  of  bringing  offenders  to  justice  in 
the  absence  of  a  pecuniary  inducement.  In  a.  d.  20,  however, 
he  appointed  ten  individuals  and  drew  by  lot  from  the  Senate 
ten  others  as  a  committee  (Tac.  An.  3,  2i)  to  devise  a  remedy 
for  evils  connected  with  this  system  of  prosecution.  The 
commission  must  have  been  occasioned  by  the  prosecution  to 
death  of  Piso  and  others  of  the  popular  party  in  that  year, 
though  this  origin  for  it  is  studiously  ignored  by  Tacitus. 

It  is  possible  that  the  Delatores  of  a.  d.  33  and  34,  who  were 
put  to  death,  may  have  been  political  pai'tisans  rather  than 
pecuniary  adventurers,  for  party  spirit  was  then  fierce  and 
vindictive.  It  may  be  also  that  the  fidelity  of  Tiberius  in 
watching  against  and  withstanding  corrupt  influences,  whether 
in  the  Senate  or  in  the  courts, -^^  ^^^J,  to  a  limited  degree,  have 
held  in  check,  during  his  own  reign,  the  evils  naturally  arising 
from  prosecution  on  shares.  One  of  the  most  noted  and  un- 
scrupulous of  Delatores  in  a  subsequent  reign,  Suilius,  was  a 
man  whom  Tiberius  had  exiled  for  accepting  a  bribe  as  judge. 
Yet  Tiberius  was  too  observant  not  to  see  the  temptations 
connected  with  this  system.  He  was  too  just  to  have  advo- 
cated it,  save  as  a  remedy  for  something  worse. 

In  judging  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  the  character  of  the 
tribunals  in  which  these  prosecutors  on  shares  figured,  at- 
tention is  arrested  by  the  extent  to  which  they  and  others  are 

ished  to  an  island  (Tacitus,  An.  4,  13).  In  the  next  year  he  was  accused 
by  Ills  own  son  of  trying  to  raise  a  rebellion  in  Gaul.  The  accuser  charged 
Csecilius  Cornutus  with  supplying  money.  Cornutus  killed  himself. 
Serenus,  save  for  the  interposition  of  Tiberius,  would  have  been  put  to 
death.  Banishment  being  determined  on,  a  senator  suggested  two  islands. 
Tiberius  mentioned  that  either  was  destitute  of  water,  and  if  they  gave 
the  man  his  life  they  ought  to  concede  the  requisites  for  its  support.  The 
Senate  then  wished  to  enact  that  if  any  one  anticipated  condemnation  by 
suicide,  accusers  should  have  no  perquisite.  Tlie  motion  would  have 
carried,  but  Tiberius  "complained  rather  severely,  and,  contrary  to 
HIS  CUSTOM,  openly  on  behalf  of  '  accusers,'  that  the  laws  would  be 
nugatory,  and  the  rei>ublic  go  to  destruction  ;  that  they  should  rather  [in 
plain  terms]  abrogate  the  laws,  than  remove  their  executors."  — Tacitus, 
An.  4,  :!0.  The  Senate  had  selected  an  opportune  moment  for  its  ell'ort. 
Indignation  was  strong  against  a  son  who  could  accuse  his  father.  Ti- 
berius probably  regarded  the  movement  as  a  half-way  step  towards  abro- 
gating any  rewards  for  successful  ])rosecution  of  wrong-doing. 

1^  Tiberius,  "not  satiated  with  trials  before  the  Senate,  was  accus- 
tomed to  seat  himself  at  other  judicial  procedures,  in  a  corner  of  the 
tribunal,  so  as  not  to  dispossess  the  pretor  of  his  seat.  In  his  presence 
many  decisions  were  established  contrary  to  the  intrigues  aud  petitions  of 
the  powerlul."  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  To. 


KOTE  C]    DELATORES,  —  PEOSECUTOES   ON   SHAEES.         481 

said  by  Tacitus  to  have  introduced  charges  of  magical  arts.^^ 
Charges  also  of  majestatis,  infidelity  to  the  state,^  were  much 
in  vogue,  partly  perhaps  because  the  allegation  was  so  broad 
and  undefined  as  to  cover  whatever  the  accuser  chose  to  in- 
clude under  it.  The  efforts  of  faction  to  make  it  include 
seeming,  or  real,  disrespect  to  Tiberius  were  pertinacious,  even 
when  opposed  by  himself  ^^ 

The  term  "  informer,"  as  a  translation  of  Delator,  should 
be  dropped.  It  implies  the  giving  of  information,  whereas  a 
crime  was  often  as  well  known  before  a  Delator  commenced 
his  proceedings  as  afterwards.  His  voluntarily  assumed  office 
was,  to  institute  action  and  obtain  conviction.  This  the  ordi- 
nary translation  does  not  express. 

19  See  Tacitus,  A71.  2,  30  ;  3,  1.3  (with  which  compare  2,  G9) ;  4,  2'2,  52 ; 
12,  59  ;  16,  31.  The  question  is  fair  whether  in  some  cases  the  charge 
(ignored  by  other  writers)  be  not  invented  by  Tacitus  to  withdraw  atten- 
tion from  the  points  at  issue. 

^^  The  Crimen  majestatis,  according  to  Ulpian  (Digest.  48,  tit.  4,  s.  1), 
as  quoted  in  Smith's  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  724,  coh  2,  was  any  "crime  com- 
mitted against  the  Koman  people  or  [against]  their  safety."  According 
to  Cicero,  it  was  alleged  to  be  anything  "  derogating  from  the  dignity, 
greatness,  or  power  of  the  people,  or  of  those  to  whom  the  people  has 
given  power."  —  De  Invent.  2,  17  {al.  l^)  ;  Ojyp.  Rhetor.  1,  pp.  42y,  430. 

^1  Tiberius  repeatedly  (Tacitus,  An.  2,  .50;  3,  -i-.',  7(i)  silenced  any  ex- 
amination into  charges  of  disrespect  towards,  or  enmity  against,  himself. 
Yet  desire  was  so  strong  in  one  or  both  of  the  contending  factions 
to  make  capital  by  charging  its  opponent  with  hostility,  or  disrespect, 
towards  the  emperor,  that  Tiberius  must  have  incurred  no  little  enmity 
by  suppressing  such  accusations.  A  Eoman  knight  (Tac.  An.  3,  To)  had 
used  a  silver  image  of  Tiberius  as  if  it  were  ordinary  silver.  For  this 
he  was  charged  with  majestatis,  infidelity  to  the  state,  or  "bad  citizen- 
ship." Tiberius  would  not  pennit  his  trial.  Capito,  a  senator,  and  in 
law-matters  (.see  p.  171)  a  leader  of  the  ultra  patrician  school,  protested 
openly,  though  ineffectually,  against  this  alleged  infringement  of  sena- 
torial privileges.  To  the  credit  of  bis  era,  he  seems  to  have  been  blamed 
for  his  meanness. 

21  BX 


482  BOOK   OF  ENOCH.  [NOTE  D. 

NOTE  D. 

BOOK  OF  ENOCH. 

§  I.    Its  tiuo  chief  Objects. 

A  WORK  or  collection  of  works,  called  the  Book  of  Enoch, 
has  —  with  additions  by  other  hands — been  preserved  to  us 
in  an  Ethiopia  version,  which  Archbishop  Laurence  translated 
into  English.  In  order  to  understand  a  main  object  of  the 
author,  we  must  remember  that  some  Jews  held  — as  did  the 
mass  of  Christians  —  that  the  ritual  and  ceremonial  law  was 
not  essential  to  salvation. 

The  writer  of  the  Book  of  Enoch  had  among  his  objects 
two  main  ones.  He  wished  to  represent  the  heathen  deities 
—  the  "evil  spirits"  whom  men  worshipped — and  their  pro- 
genitors, the  fellen  angels,  as  being  the  originators  of  moral 
evil.^  He  wished  that  God's  alleged  purpose  touching  these 
beings  and  the  practices  which  they  had  introduced  should 
be  uttered,  not  by  a  Jewish  prophet,  but  by  one  who  lived 
BEFORE  THE  EXISTENCE  OP  Jews  and  when  their  peculiar  insti- 
tutions were  unknown.  The  Book  of  Enoch  ignores  circum- 
cision, the  sabbath,*^  and  the  whole  ceremonial  law. 

If  the  foregoing  statement  of  the  writer's  object  be  correct, 
it  militates  against,  yet  without  absolutely  precluding  the 

1  The  author's  statement  of  moral  evil  is  so  disproportioned  as  to  show 
the  class  of  controversies  which  prevailed  around  him.  He  says  that  the 
giants  (whose  spirits  after  death  were  worsliipjied)  "turned  themselves 
against  men,  in  order  to  devour  them  ;  and  began  to  injure  birds,  beasts, 
reptiles,  and  fishes,  to  eat  their  flesh,  one  after  anotlier,  and  to  drink 
their  Wood.  .  .  .  Moreover,  Azazyel  taught  men  to  make  swords,  knives, 
shields,  breastplates,  the  fabrication  of  mirrors,  and  the  workmanship 
of  bracelets  and  ornaments,  the  use  of  paint,  the  beautifying  of  tlie  eye- 
brows, the  use  of  stones  of  every  valuable  and  select  kind,  and  of  all 
sorts  of  dyes,  so  that  the  world  became  altered.  .  .  .  Amazarak  taught 
all  the  sorcerers  and  dividers  of  roots ;  Armers  taught  the  solution  of 
sorcery;  Barakayal  taught  the  observers  of  the  stars;  Akibeel  taught 
signs;  Tamiel  taught  astronomy  ;  and  Asaradel  taught  the  motion  of  the 
moon."  —  7,  13-  8,  8. 

2  It  is  scarcely  an  exception  to  the  above  remark  that,  in  c.  10,  2:',  the 
term  "  sabbaths"  is  used  as  a  .synonyme  for  weeks.  It  is  theie  said  of 
the  righteous,  "their  weeks  (sabbatlis)  shall  be  completed  in  peace." 
The  flreek  word  for  sabbath  was  used  sometimes  in  the  sense  of  week  ; 
see  Robinson's  New  Testament  Lexicon. 


§n.]  THE  JUDGMENT.  483 

supposition  that  the  original  was  in  Hebrew.^  The  author 
who  ignored  what  the  less  liberal  Jews  held  sacred,  would 
have  found  few  readers  in  that  language.'* 

§  II.  The  Judgment. 
During  the  Jewish  rebellion  under  Nero,  as  well  as  imme- 
diately before  and  after  it,  renouncement  of  the  Jewish  law 
was  probably  carried,  by  Christian  converts,  of  the  looser  sort, 
to  the  extent  of  lax  morality.  At  this  date,  appai'ently,  the 
Epistle  of  Jude  quotes  by  name  the  supposed  work  of  Enoch. 
The  second  epistle  attributed  to  Peter  draws  from  it.  The 
first  epistle  of  Peter,  perhaps,  alludes  to  it,  and  the  Apocalypse 
contains  language  so  analogous  to  some  in  its  latter  pakt 
as  to  show  that,  if  not  drawn  from  it,  both  had  some  common 
origin.  In  placing  these  parallelisms  before  the  reader,  the 
common  version  of  the  Epistles  and  Apocalypse  is  retained, 
because  Laurence-  has  couclied  his  translation  of  Enoch  in  the 
same  phraseology.  A  more  accurate  translation  of  Jude,  verse 
15,  would,  I  think,  be  "to  convict  all  the  heathenish  among 
them  of  all  their  deeds  of  heathenism  wherewith  they  ignored 
God." 

Jude.  Book  of  Enoch. 

Verses  14, 15.  "  And  indeed  Enoch,  Chap.  2.  "  Behold,  he  comes  with 
the  seventh  from  Adam,  prophesied  ten  thousands  of  his  saints  to  execute 
of  these,  saying.  Behold  tlie  Lord  is  judgment  upon  them,  and  destroy  tlie 
coming  witli  ten  thousands  of  his  wicked,  and  reprove  all  the  carnal  for 
saints,  to  execute  judgment  upon  all,  everything  which  the  sinful  and  un- 
and  to  convince  all  that  are  ungodly  godly  have  done  and  committed 
among  them  of  all  their  ungodly  deeds  against  him." 
■which  they  have  ungodly  committed, 

and  of  all  their  hard  speeches  which  ungodly  sinners  have  spoken  against 
him." 

^  That  the  Ethiopic  version  was  made  from  the  Greek  appears  to  he 
admitted  (Luecke,  Einlcit.  in  die  OJhibar.  2d  edit.  Vol.  1,  p.  109 ;  Kcw 
Am.  Cydoj).  art.  Enoch);  but  Luecke,  after  discussing  on  p.  110-113 
whether  the  Greek  were  a  translation  from  the  Hebrew,  apparently  de- 
cides this  question  (p.  144)  in  the  affirmative.  Hoft'mann  (Das  Buck 
Henoch,  Vol.  1,  p.  30)  assumes  without  hesitation  that  the  original  was 
in  Hebrew.  See  also  Laurence's  Book  of  Enoch,  p.  xxviii,  and  the  New 
Am.  Cyclopuidiu,  art.  Enoch. 

*  After  the  rebellion  under  Hadrian,  Jewish  and  anti-Jewish  feeling 
was  so  bitter  that  the  Jews  would  not  have  tolerated  among  their  num- 
ber those  who  advocated  salvation  without  "The  Law."  The  Liberalist 
Jews  must  have  either  been  absorbed  into  tlie  Christian  bod_y,  or  if  they 
remained  among  their  brethren,  must  have  been  silenced.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  remark  of  Origen  is  not  surprising:  "The  books  (of 
Enoch)  do  not  seem  to  be  esteemed  an  authority  among  Jews."  — 
Origen,  in  Num.  Horn.  28,  -2;  Oi^p.  2,  p.  384  E,  F,  edit.  Lommatzsch, 
10,  p.  366. 


4S4  BOOK   OF  ENOCH.  [isOTE   D. 

§  III.    The  Planets. 

The  planets  were  by  the  heathens  named  after  then'  deities. 
If  this  took  place  before  the  Book  of  Enoch  was  written,  it, 
or  the  common  astrological  use  of  planets,  may  explain  the 
indignation  wherewith  this  book  views  them.  They  were 
the  only  stars  which  disobeyed  God  by  not  coming  in  their 
season.     Compare  on  this  subject  Ch.  IV.  note  8. 

Jude.  Book  of  Enoch. 

12,13.  "These  are  .  .  .  wander-  18,  14,  16.  "I  beheld  seven  stars 
ING  STARS,  to  whom  is  reserved  the  .  .  .  like  spirits  entreating  rne,  .  .  .  the 
blackness  of  darkness  forever."  stars  are  those  wiiicli  transgressed  the 

commandment  of  God;  ...  for  they 
CAME  NOT  IN  THEIR  PROPER  SEASON.  .  .  .  Therefore  ...  he  ...  bound 
them,  until  the  period  of  the  consummation  of  their  crimes  in  the  secret  year." 
21,  3.  "  These  are  those  of  the  stars  which  have  transgressed  the  command- 
ment of  the  most  high  God;  and  are  here  bound,  until  the  infinite  number  of 
the  days  of  their  crimes  be  completed." 

§  IV.    Punishment  of  Angels. 

In  the  next  extracts  two  things  deserve  notice.  The  kind 
of  jDunishment  to  which  the  angels  were  subjected,  as  described 
by  Jude,  is  the  same  which  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Enoch, 
namely,  chains  of  darkness.  P^u-ther,  the  punishment  of  the 
angels  is  connected  as  closely  with  the  flood  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  Noah  in  2  Peter  as  in  Enoch's  alleged  work.  The 
metaphor,  "  chains  of  darkness,"  is  illustrated  by  a  passage 
in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  (17,  2,  IG,  17).  The  Egyptians 
"being  shut  up  in  their  houses,  the  prisoners  of  darkness,  and 
fettei-ed  with  the  bonds  of  a  long  night,  lay  .  .  .  shut  up  in 
a  prison  without  iron  bars,  .  .  .  they  were  all  bound  with  one 
chain  of  darkness."  Such  fetters,  though  potent  as  iron,  were 
of  course  weightless ;  hence  the  singular  expression  in  the 
Book  of  Enoch,  63,  5. 

Jude.  Book  of  Enoch. 

6.     "  Those  angels   who  kept   not  7,  2.     "  When  the  angols,  the  sons 

their  first   estate,  but    forsook    their  of  heaven,  beheld  tlicm   [the  daugh- 

habitation,  he  keepeth  in  everlasting  ters  of  men],  they  became  enamored 

CHAINS  under  DARKNESS  forjudgment  of  them.     7.  Their  whole  number  was 

at  the  great  day."  two   hundred,  who    descended    u]ion 

Ardis,   which    is    the    top   of    ]\Iount 

2  Peter.  Armon."    10,  1-9.  "  The  Most  High 

2,  4,  5.     "  If   (jod   spared   not  the  .  .   .    sent  Arsayalalyur  to  the  son  of 

angels  that  sinned,  lint  delivered  them  Lamecli  [Noah],  saying  .  .  .  exjilain 

to  be  kept  till  the  jtidgment,  punish-  to   him   the   consummation  which   is 

ing  (literally  Tartarus-ing)  tliem  with  about  to  take  place  [as  a  means  of  re- 

CHAINS  OF  DARKNESS,  uor  spared  the  moving  the  mischiefs  occasioned  by  the 

old  world,  but  saved  with  seven  others  angels,  and  their  children,  the  giants] ; 


§v.] 


KENOVATION   OF   THE   UNIVERSE   BY   FIRE.  485 


Noah,  a  preacher  of  righteousness.s  for  all  the  earth  shall  perish;  the 
and  brought  a  Hood  on  a  world  of  un-  waters  of  a  deluge  shall  coine  over  the 
godly  men."  whole  earth,  and  all  things  which  are 

in  it  shall  be  destroyed.  And  now 
teach  him  how  ho  mav  escape,  and  how  his  seed  may  remain  in  all  the  earth. 
The  Lord  said  .  .  .  Bind  Azazyel  hand  and  foot,  cast  him  into  dakkmess; 
and  opening  the  desert  which  "is  in  Dudael,  cast  him  in  there  .  .  .  covering 
him  with  darkness;  .  .  .  cover  his  face,  that  he  may  not  see  the  light.  .  .  . 
In  the  great  day  of  judgment,  let  him  be  cast  into  the  fire."  15.  "  Bind  them 
[the  angels]  for  seventy  generations  underneath  the  earth,  even  to  the  day  of 
judgmeiit."  12,  5-7".  "  The  Lord  said  to  me:  Enoch,  .  .  .  tell  the  Watchers 
of  heaven,  who  have  deserted  the  lofty  sky,  and  their  holy,  everlasting  station, 
.  .  .  who  have  been  greatly  corrupted  on  the  earth,  that  on  the  earth  they  shall 
never  obtain  peace  iind  remission  of  sin."  14,  2-4.  "I  [Enoch]  have  written 
your  petition;  .  .  .  what  vou  request  will  not  be  granted;  .  .  .  never  shall 
you  ascend  into  heaven.  "He  has  said  that  on  the  earth  he  will  bind  you  as 
long  as  the  world  endures."  15,  1.  "  Say  to  the  Watchers  of  heaven  who  have 
sent  thee  to  prav  for  them."  16,  5.  "Never,  therefore,  shall  you  obtain 
peace."  21,  6.  "Enoch,  .  .  .  this  terrific  place  ...  is  the  prison  of  the  angels; 
and  here  are  thev  kept  forever."  53,  3,  5.  "My  eyes  beheld  .  .  .  fetters 
of  iron  without  weight;  .  .  .  these  are  prepared  for  the  host  of  Azazeel." 
54,  6.  "  1  beheld  hosts  of  angels  who  were  moving  in  punishment,  confined  in 
a  network  of  iron  and  brass."  66  4.  "They  shall  confine  those  angels  .  .  . 
in  that  burning  valley." 

§  V.    Renovation  of  the  Universe  by  Fire. 

The  renovation  of  the  universe  by  fire  was,  as  we  have  seen,* 
held  by  many  Jews  outside  op  Palestine.  The  only  allu- 
sion to  it  in  the  New  Testament  is  the  following  jjassage  of 
2  Peter.  The  prior  use,  by  that  epistle,  of  the  work  ascribed 
to  Enoch,  renders  probable  that  the  following  also  may  have 
been  borrowed  from  or  suggested  by  it. 

2  Peter.  Book  of  Enoch. 

3,7.   "The  heavens  and  the  earth,        1,6.  "  The  lofty  mountains  shall  be 

which  are  now,  by  the  same  word  are  troubled  [in  the  day  of  God's  Judg- 

kept  in  store,  reserved  unto  fire  against  ment],  and  the  exalted  hills  depressed, 

the  day  of  judgment  and  perdition  of  meltinglike  a  honeycomb  [like  waxV] 

ungodly  men."      10.   "  The  elements  in  the  flame.     The  earth  shall  be  im- 

*  "  A  preacher  of  rectitude  "  would  be  a  more  correct  translation. 
Those  patriarchs  who  pleased  God  prior  to  Abraham's  time,  and  perhaps 
also  from  the  time  of  Abraham  to  that  of  Moses,  were  by  the  early  Chris- 
tians, and  apparently  by  the  Jews,  designated  as  diKaioi,  Ju.st  Men,  in 
distinction  from  the  Jewish  jirophets,  or  fi'oni  any  who  added  to  justice 
an  observance  of  the  Law  (see  Undenoorld  Mission,  pp.  5,  9.  10,  11,  12, 
22,  58  ;  3d  edit.  pp.  5,  9,  11,  12,  21,  22,  57).  Noah's  designation, 
"  preacher  (5[Kato(ruc7;s)  of  ju.stice,"  or  rectitude,  is  intended  to  distin- 
guish him  from  such  as,  in  addition  thereto,  preached  Jewish  observ- 
ances. Judu's  mention  of  Enoch,  as  the  seventh  from  Adam,  was  in- 
tended, probably,  to  convey  the  same  idea,  that  he  lived  and  taught  prior 
to  Jewisli  institutions. 

^  See  pp.  44,  45,  56,  140,  and  compare  the  last-mentioned  page  with 
note  45  on  p.  55. 


486  BOOK   OF  EXOCH.  [NOTE  D. 

shall  melt  with  fervent  heat.  The  merfred,  and  all  thinjrs  which  are  in  it 
eartli  also,  and  the  works  that  are  perish."  92,  16, 17.  "  A  spacious  eter- 
therein,  sluill  be  burned  up."  12.  .  .  .  ual  lieaven  sliall  s])rins;  forth  in  tiie 
"  The  heavens  beins:  on  fire  sliall  be  midst  of  tlie  angels.  The  former  heaven 
dissolved,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  shall  depart  and  pass  away;  a  new 
with  fervent  heat."  13.  "  Neverthe-  heaven  shall  ap]iear.  Afterwards  like- 
less,  we,  according  to  his  promise,  wiseshall  there  be  many  weeks,  which 
look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  shall  eternally  exist  in  goodness  and 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness."  in  righteousness." 

§  VI.    Soul  and  Spirit. 

The  ancients  discriminated  sometimes  between  soul  and 
spirit,  using  the  former  to  designate  the  vital,  or  rational, 
principle  in  human,  and  the  latter  for  the  same  principle  in 
superhuman,  beings;  see  Ch.  111.  note  17.  The  Book  of 
Enoch  makes  this  distinction."  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  by 
restricting  its  mention  of  disobedient  spirits  to  those  of  Noah's 
time,  renders  probable  that  it  refers  to  those  described  in  that 
book.  Were  it  certain  that  2  Peter  is  correctly  attributed 
to  the  apostle,  this  probability  would  be  increased. 

1  Peter.  Book  of  Enoch. 

3,  19,  20.  '•  By  which  also  he  went  15,  8.   "  Now  the  i^iants,  who  have 

and  preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison;  been  born  of  spirit  and  of  flesh,  shall 

which     formerly    were     disobedient,  be  called  upon  earth  evil  spirits,  .  .  . 

when  once  the  long  suffering  of  God  beeausetliey  were  created  from  above; 

waited  in  the  days  of  Noah,  while  the  from  the  lioly  Watchers  was  their  be- 

ark  was   a   preparing,   wherein   few,  ginning  and  primary  foundation.  Evil 

that   is,  eight  souls,  were    saved  by  spirits  shall  they  be  upon  earth,  and 

water."                                                  '  the  spirits  of  the  wicked  shall  they  be 

called." 

§  VII.    Parallelism  of  the  Apocalypse  and  Booh  of  Enoch. 

Between  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Book  of  Enoch  there  is  in 
many  passages  a  striking  resemblance,  yet  not  such  as  to 
necessarily  imply  that  one  had  copied  the   other.     Possibly 

■^  "  Enoch  .  .  .  say  to  the  Watchers,  .  .  .  you  being  spiritual,  holy  (?) 
and  possessing  a  life  which  is  eternal,  .  .  .  have  done  as  those  who  are 
flesh  and  blood  do.  These,  liowever,  die  and  perish.  Therefore  have  I 
given  to  them  wives,  .  .  .  that  sons  might  be  born  of  them,  but  yon 
from  tlie  beginning  were  made  ri'IKITUAL,  possessing  [therefore]  a  life 
which  is  et(u-nal,  and  not  subject  to  death  forever.  Tliercfore  I  made  not 
wives  for  you."  —  Book  of  Enoch,  15,  !  -T.  See  also  Underworld  Mis- 
sion, note  on  ])p.  154,  I.'jo  (;id  edit.  p.  148,  note  3),  witli  wliich  coiniiare  in 
same  work  note  on  p.  92  (.Sd  edit.  ]).  88,  note  8).  It  will  be  noticed  that 
the  term  "  holy,"  in  the  foregoing,  is  not,  as  now,  a  designation  of  char- 
acter, but  of  position  or  endowment.  On  this  meaning  see  George 
Campbell,  Prelim.  DisserUU.  6,  Part  4,  §§  9  - 16,  prefixed  to  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Four  Gospels. 


§vii.] 


APOCALYPSE  AND   BOOK   OF   ENOCH. 


48^ 


ideas  and  phraseology,  disseminated  by  the  Book  of  Enoch, 
may  have  been  adopted,  in  an  altered  shape,  by  the  writer  of 
the  Apocalypse  withont  his  having  seen  the  other  work.  Or 
both  may  have  copied  from  a  common  source,  written  or  oral.* 
Yet  the  temporarily  increased  currency  given  to  the  Book  of 
Enoch  by  events  under  Nero,  would  render  an  acquaintance 
with  that  work,  by  the  writer  of  the  AjDocalypse,  natural 
enough.  The  passages  in  it,  to  which  a  resemblance  exists  in 
the  Apocalypse,  are  mostly  in  the  latter  portion  of  the  work, 
which  did  not  proceed  from  the  original  author. 

Apocalypse.  Book  of  Enoch. 

6,  10,  11.  "And  they  (the  mar-  47,2.  "In  that  day  shall  the  holy 
tyrs)  were  crying  with  a  loud  voice,  ones  .  .  .  petition  .  .  .  the  Lord  of 
saying,  How  long  wilt  thou  delay,  Su-  Spirits  on  account  of  the  hlood  of  the 
preme  Ruler,  holy  and  true,  to  judge  righteous  which  has  been  shed  .  .  . 
and  avenge  our  blood  on  the  inhabi-  that  for  them  he  would  execute  judg- 
tants  of  the  earth?  .  .  .  and  they  ment,  and  that  his  patience  may  not 
WKKE  TuLD  TO  KEST  CONTENTKD  YET  endure  forever."  104,  1-3.  "Ye 
AWHILE."  righteous,  .  .  .  your  cries  have  cried 

for  judgment,  and  it  has  appeared  to 
you:  for  an  account  of  all  your  suffering  shall  be  required  from  the  princes, 
and  from  every  one  who  has  assisted  your  plunderers.  Wait  with  patient 
HOPE."  —  [  Two  diaptersin  Enoch  are 


numbered  104.] 

14,  13.     "  Happy  are  the  dead  who 
die     in    the    Lord    henceforth:  .  .  . 

THEIR  WORKS   GO   WITH   THEM." 


14,  20.  "  And  the  wine-press  was 
trodden  on  the  outside  of  the  city; 
and  blood  came  from  the  wine-press 
up  to  the  bridles  of  the  horses,  for  a 
thousand  and  six  hundred  furlongs." 

16,  12.  "And  the  sixth  angel  poured 
out  his  phial  upon  that  great  river 
Euphrates;  and  its  water  was  dried 
up  that  the  way  of  the  Kings  of  the 
East  might  lie  prepared." 

18,20.  "Rejoice  over  her,  ...  ye 
ho'v  apostles  and  prophets;  for  God 
hath  avenged  you  on  her." 


103,  3.  "  The  spirits  of  you  who 
die  in  righteousness  shall  exist  and 
rejoice.  .  .  .  Theik    kejiembkance 

SHALL  BK  BEFORE  THE  FACE  OF  THE 

JliGHTY  One.  .  .  ." 

98,  3.  "  The  horse  shall  wade  up 
to  his  breast,  and  the  chariot  shall 
sink  to  its  axle,  in  the  blood  of  sin- 
ners." 

54,  9.  "  Then  shall  princes  com- 
bine together  and  conspire.  The  chiefs 
of  the  East  among  the  Parthians  and 
Medes  shall  remove  kings." 

47,  4.  "Then  were  the  hearts  of 
the  saints  full  of  joy,  because  .  .  . 
the  supplication  of'  the  saints  [was] 
heard,  and  the  blood  of  the  righteous 
appreciated  by  the  Lord  of  .Si)irits." 


^  Daniel  (7,  o,)  represents  tlie  "Ancient  of  Days"  as  liavint^  hair 
white  as  wooL  The  Book  of  Enoch  copies  (46,  l)  this  di-siTiiition  of 
the  Supreme  Being.  Anotlier  jiassage  of  the  same  work  (105,  -)  repre- 
sents Noah  as  born  with  hair  like  wool,  from  which  his  fatlier  infers 
"  he  is  not  human,  but  resembling  the  offspring  of  the  angels  of  heaven." 
An  apparently  similar  conception  in  the  Apocalypse  has  been  quoted  on 
p.  260.  —  Conceptions  altered  from  the  Old  Testament  may,  especially 
in  a  time  of  excitement,  have  been  circulating  in  the  Jewish  community, 
and  were  liable  to  be  appropriated  by  persons  who  did  not  even  know 
their  origin. 

21* 


488 


BOOK   OF  ENOCH. 


[note  D. 


20,  13.  "  And  the  sea  jjave  np  her 
dead ;  and  death  and  the  underworld 
gave  up  their  dead  also." 


21,  1.  "  And  I  saw  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth;  for  the  first  heaven 
and  the  first  earth  had  passed  away." 


21,  3,  4.  "God  himself  sliall  .  .  . 
be  their  God.  .  .  .  Theue  shall  be 

NO  MOKE  DEATH,  NEITHER  SOHHOW, 
NOR  CRYING,  NEITHER  SHALL  THERE 
BE     ANV     SIORE    PAIN."      23.      "And 

the  city  [of  the  blessed]  hath  no  need 
of  the  sun,  nor  of  tlie  moon,  to  shine 
therein;  for  tlie  glory  of  God  enlight- 
eneth  it,  anl  the  Lamb  is  its  lamp." 

22,  18,  19.  "  Now  1  declare  at  the 
same  time  to  every  man  that  heareth 
the  words  of  the  prophecy  of  this 
book,  If  any  man  shall  add  unto  these 
things,  God  will  lay  on  him  the 
plagues  that  are  written  in  this  book; 
and  if  any  man  shall  take  away  from 
the  words  of  this  book  of  prophecy, 
God  shall  take  away  his  portion  from 
that  tree  of  life  and  out  of  that  holy 
city  which  are  written  of  in  this 
book." 

Compare  on  p.  269,  note  42. 


50,  1.  "In  those  days  shall  the 
eartli  deliver  up  from  her  womb,  and 
hell  (i.  e.  the  underworld)  deliver 
up  from  hers,  that  which  it  has  re- 
ceived: and  destruction  shall  restore 
that  which  it  owes." 

92,  16,  17.  "A  spacious  eternal 
heaven  shall  spring  forth  in  the  midst 
of  the  angels.  The  former  heaven 
shall  depart  and  pass  away;  a  new 
heaven  shall  appear." 

1,    8.     '•  Then   shall   all   belong  to 

God;    BE   HAPPY    AND    BLESSED;   and 

the  splendor  of  the  Godhead  shall  illu- 
minate them." 


104,  7-9.  "Now  will  I  point  out 
a  mystery;  since  many  sinners  shall 
pervert  and  transgress  against  the 
word  of  uprightness  .  .  .  When  they 
shall  write  all  my  words  correctly  in 
their  own  languages,  they  shall  neither 
change  nor  diminish  them;  but  shall 
write  them  all  correctly:  all  which 
from  the  first  I  have  uttered  concern- 
ing them." 

[Two  chapters  in  Enoch  are  num- 
bered 104.] 


The  foregoing  table  does  not  by  any  means  exhaust  the 
points  of  similarity  between  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Book,  or 
Books,  of  Enoch. 

§  viii.  Additions  to  Booh  of  Enoch. 
The  reader  may  wish  to  know  something  concerning  the 
date,  or  dates,  of  the  tracts,  or  "  Booklets "  Hhdli,  as  Origen 
calls  them,  which  pass  under  Enoch's  name.  The  foregoing 
citations  render  obvious  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  collection 
existed  before  the  destruction  of  the  temple.  If,  beyond  this, 
we  wish  to  determine,  approximately  even,  the  time  of  com- 
position, we  must  distinguish  the  later  tracts  from  one  or 
more  which  proceeded,  or  may  have  proceeded,  from  the  origi- 
nal author.  To  a  limited  extent,  at  least,  this  can  be  done. 
The  doctrine  of  the  original  author,  that  wrong-doing  was  in- 
troduced by  the  angels,  is  so  pointedly  contradicted  in  a  Liter 
passage''  that  the  two  cannot  have  come  from  one  hand.    The 


^  Chapters  94-104  are  probably  a  distinct  tract  which  open.s  witli 
a  lamentation  over  wickediie.s.s,  but  changes  immediately  to  an  outpour- 


NOTE  E.]  ROMAN    CHRONOLOGY.  489 

allegorical  restatement,  chapters  84-89,  includes  what  the 
original  author  plainly  narrated,  and  must,  for  more  reasons 
than  one,  have  been  by  another  writer. ^° 

The  original  tract  or  tracts  were  probably  as  early  as  the 
Christian  era.  The  absence  from  them  of  any  prediction  con- 
cerning Rome's  destruction  might  raise  the  question  whether 
they  were  not  even  of  earlier  date.  But  the  author  lived 
in  a  remote  locality,"  where,  prior  to  a.  d.  19,  religious  hos- 
tility to  Rome  may  have  been  comparatively  weak.  Ch.  54, 
9,  of  later  date,  is  pi'obably  an  anticipation  of  Rome's  over- 
throw by  the  Parthians.-^^ 


NOTE  E. 

ROMAN   CHRONOLOGY. 


It  is  known  that  the  second  year  of  each  emperor's  reign 
was  regarded  as  beginning  with  the  New  Year's  day  after  his 
accession.^     There  is,  however,  a  difference  between  Eastern 


ing  of  moral  indignation,  with  denunciation  of  punishment  for  the  wicked 
and  reward  for  the  rigliteous.  In  it  occurs  the  statement  (96,  1-2,  13), 
"  neither  [the  mineral  of]  mountain  or  hill  has  been  or  shall  be  a  servant 
to  woman,  neither  in  thls  way  has  crime  been  sent  down  to  us 
UPON  EARTH,  but  men  of  their  own  heads  have  invented  it." 

Passages  in  this  tract  have  some  analogy  to  the  epistle  of  James,  but 
are  generally  more  vehement  in  tone.  In  the  epistle  of  James  we  have 
moral  teaching  blended  with  some  indignation  at  wrong.  In  the  present 
tract  we  have  indignation  at  wrong  blended  with  some  moral  teaching. 
This  tract  may  have  been  almost  cotemporaneous  with  the  epistle  of 
James  and  the  Apocalypse. 

^^  The  same  writer  would  hardly  restate  obscurely  what  he  had  already 
narrated  plainly.  Moreover,  in  the  original  composition,  as  also  in  some 
of  the  additions  to  it,  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  treated  as  enduring 
(6,  .5-10,  16,  .5),  but  in  the  allegoiical  part,  mentioned  above,  we  are  told 
(89,  4-2)  that  "the  Lord  of  the  sheep  rejoiced  with  great  joy  because  all 
were  good  and  had  come  back  again  to  his  dwemjno." 

11  The  author  treats  the  longest  day  and  night  (71,  18,  Xi,  :U)  as  sixteen 
hours,  which  implies  that  he  lived  farther  north  than  either  the  Black  or 
Caspian  Sea. 

12  See  in  Ch.  IX.  the  concluding  paragraph  of  note  26. 

1  In  this  respect  the  years  of  emperors  were  differently  computed  from 
those  of  "  Independence  "  in  the  United  States,  these  latter  being  calcu- 
lated from  July  4th  to  July  4th. 


490  EOMAN   CHRONOLOGY.  [NOTE  E. 

and  "Western  writers  in  their  enumeration  of  emperors  which 
deserves,  but  seems  to  have  escaped,  attention.  Western 
authors  count  Galba,  Otho,  and  VitelUus  as  belonging  to  the 
series.  Some,  at  least,  of  the  Eastern  ones  omit  them,  per- 
haps because  in  their  quarter  of  the  world  these  three  were 
regarded  rather  as  unsuccessful  aspirants  than  as  emperors. 
Eusebius,  in  his  Chronicon,  places  Vespasian  as  the  successor 
of  Nero.^  Samuel  Aniensis  does  the  same.^  A  portion  of  the 
SibA'lline  Oracles,  7,  1  -  47,  which,  from  its  mention  of  Hadrian, 
must  have  originated  in  the  second  century,  distinguishes  each 
emperor  by  the  initial  letter  of  his  name,  or  rather  by  the 
number  which,  in  Greek,  it  represented.  To  each  emperor  his 
number  and  a  slight  description  are  accorded,  except  to  Galba, 
Otho,  and  Vitellius,  who  were  probably  omitted  in  the  piece 
as  originally  written.  As  the  piece  now  stands  a  single  line 
is  devoted  to  all  three.  No  number,  or  initial,  is  given  for 
any  one  of  them.  The  line,  following  the  description  of  Nero, 
simply  says,  — 

"  After  him  three  kings  shall  be  destroyed  by  each  other."  * 

It  is  probably  an  interpolation  intended  to  supply  an  apparent 
omission.  Had  it  been  the  work  of  the  original  author,  there 
seems  no  reason  why  the  initials  of  the  three  emperors  should 
have  been  omitted.  The  Second  Book  of  Esdras  which  enu- 
merates twelve  emperors  must  also  have  dropped  these  three 
from  its  count,  since  its  contents  imply  that  it  belongs  to 
the  time  of  Hadrian  rather  than  of  Domitian.^  The  Apoca- 
lypse must  not  only  omit  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius,  but  must 
commence  the  series  with  Augustus.^  The  sixth  king  is  rep- 
resented as  on  the  throne,  while  Nero  is  described  with  suffi- 
cient plainness  as  the  beast  which  "was,  and  is  not  now,  and 
shall  reappear."'' 

2  See  Chronicon  of  Eusebius  (Jlediol.  1818),  pp.  375,  376. 

8  See  Chrouicoi)  of  Samuel  (JMediol.  1S18),  p.  33. 

*  Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  :>.5.     Compare  12  (Friedl.  10),  95-i)8. 

6  See  Ch.  VI.  note  38. 

^  Julius  Cajsar  was  killed  fourteen  years  before  Augustus  became  sole 
ruler,  and  was,  therefore,  naturally  dissociated  from  the  SEiuics  of  em- 
perors. It  may  not  have  been  customary  at  the  East,  nor  perhaps  even 
at  the  We.st,  when  the  Apocalypse  was  written,  to  reckon  him  as  be- 
longing to  a  LINE  of  emperors.  The  question  also  deserves  consideration 
whether  traditions  of  his  kindly  relations  towards  the  Jews  can  have 
indisposed  them  to  class  him  with  those  whom  they  deemed  oppressors. 
C'oni]Kir('  ]>p.  153-1.").5. 

"  Rev.  17,  ^.     Compare  page  258. 


NOTE  F.]  NERO'S  KETUKN.  491 

NOTE  F. 

NERO'S  RETUEN. 

§  I.    As  held  hy  Romans. 

When  Nero  had  passed  away,  doubts  concerning  his  death 
lingered  for  a  time  in  the  Roman  mind.  These  would  lose 
strength  or  prominence,  and  then,  by  some  exciting  cause, 
have  fresh  life  infused  into  them.  But  in  one  respect  the 
doubts  of  the  Romans  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
the  belief  of  the  Jews  and  of  the  Jewish  and  semi-Jewish 
Christians.  These  three  bodies  held  to  a  superxatural  pres- 
ervation or  restoration  of  Nero  from  death,  and  the  semi- 
Jewish  Christians  at  least  clung  to  this  opinion  for  centuries. 
Among  the  Romans  any  anticipation  of  Nero's  return  seems 
to  have  died  out  within  the  ordinary  lifetime  of  a  man  and 
to  have  had  nothing  supernatural  connected  with  it.  It  was 
only  such  a  belief  as  has  more  than  once  lingered  in  the  world 
concerning  other  persons  whose  deaths  were  uncertain,-^  and, 
though  it  occasioned  some  commotion,  it  would  need  no  men- 
tion here  save  for  its  connection  with  Jewish  and  Jewish 
Christian  opinions.  The  intensity  of  both  these  —  more  in- 
tense perhaps  for  some  years  after  Nero's  death  than  at  any 
later  period  —  could  scarcely  foil  to  re-act  on  the  Roman  mind, 
nor  is  it  otherwise  than  probable  that  Roman  uncertainty  as 
to  Nero's  death  should,  so  long  as  it  lasted,  tend  to  confirm 
Jewish  and  Christian  expectation. 

A  perusal  of  the  passages  in  the  note^  will  show  that  during 

1  More  than  half  a  century  after  the  death  or  supposed  death  of 
Louis  XVII.  of  France,  articles  were  written  in  an  American  maga- 
zine to  prove  that  he  was  then  living  in  the  backwoods  of  America. 
See  Putnam's  Monthly,  1853,  and  New  Am.  Cyclopedia,  art.  Eleazar 
Williams. 

'^  "It  had  formerly  been  predicted  to  Nero  by  astrologers  that  a  time 
would  come  when  he  should  lie  destitute  [of  his  imperial  power].  .  .  . 
Yet  some  promised  him,  during  this  destitution,  the  dominion  of  the 
East ;  a  portion  specified  the  dominion  of  Jerusalem  ;  many  promised  the 
restitution  of  all  his  former  fortune  ;  to  which  [last-mentioned]  hope 
being  naturally  inclined,  he  thought,  after  the  loss  and  recovery  of 
Britain  and  Armenia,  that  he  had  fulfilled  his  evil  fates."  —  Suetonius, 
Nero,  40. 

"[Nero]  died  in  his  thirty-second  year.  ,  .  .  There  were  not  wanting 


492  need's  eeturn.  [note  f. 

twenty  or  thirty  years  more  than  one  pretender  to  the  name 
of  Nero  arose,  and  that  even  so  late  as  the  reign  of  Titus  an 


persons  who  for  a  long  time  ornamented  his  grave  with  spring  and  sum- 
mer flowers,  and  who  at  times  would  carry  in  the  Rostrum  images  of  him 
clothed  in  robes  of  othee,  and  at  other  times  would  announce  edicts  from 
him  AS  IF  ALIVE  and  about  to  return,  to  the  serious  detriment  of  his 
enemies.  And  even  Vologesus,  king  of  the  Parthians,  on  the  occasion 
of  his  sending  ambassadors  to  the  Senate  for  the  sake  of  instituting  a 
league  [with  Home],  besought,  with  much  earnestness,  that  the  memory 
of  Xero  should  be  cheiished.  And  finally,  when  twenty  years  later 
[a.  I).  88  '.],  at  the  time  when  I  was  a  young  man,  some  person  arose  of 
unknown  origin,  who  boasted  that  he  was  Nero,  the  name  found  such 
favor  among  the  Parthians  that  he  was  strenuously  assisted,  and  with 
difficulty  given  up."  —  Sueton.  A'cro,  57. 

"At  the  same  time  (a.  n.  70)  Achaia  and  Asia  were  fiilsely  alarmed,  aa 
if  Nero  were  coming,  the  rumors  concerning  his  death  not  agreeing  with 
each  other,  and,  therefore,  many  feigning  and  believing  him  alive.  We 
shall  narrate  in  the  course  of  this  work,  in  contextii  operis,  the  fate  and 
efforts  of  other  [false  NerosJ.  At  this  time  a  slave  from  Pontus,  or,  as 
others  have  said,  a  freedman  from  Italy,  skilled  in  playing  on  the  harp 
and  in  singing,  so  that  on  account  of  his  similarity  of  countenance  he 
had  more  confidence  in  his  ability  to  deceive,  formed  a  companionship 
with  deserters  [from  the  army].  .  .  .  The  ship  [in  which  the  pretender 
embarked]  was  seized,  and  he,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  was  put  to 
death.  His  bod}'^,  remarkable  for  the  eyes,  hair,  and  sternness  of  coun- 
tenance, was  carried  first  to  Asia  and  thence  to  Piome."  —  Tacitus, 
Hist.  2,  s,  0.  This  man,  it  should  be  remarked,  does  not  seem  to  have 
called  forth  any  governmental  effort  to  crush  him. 

"  I  attempt  a  work  full  of  incident,  .  .  .  the  arms  of  the  Parthians  also 
being  almost  called  into  action  by  the  trickery  of  a  false  Nero."  — Taci- 
tus, Hist.  1,  2.  This  one  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  preceding. 
Tacitus  deems  him  imjiortant  enough  to  hold  a  place  among  the  stated 
objects  of  his  work.  He  is  no  doubt  the  same  as  the  one  last  mentioned 
by  Suetonius,  and  the  special  mention  of  him  by  Tacitus  would  belong  to 
that  portion  of  his  work  which  is  lost. 

"A  certain  false  Nero  [whose  name  Dio  did  not  know]  was  seized  at 
the  same  time  and  afterwards  punished."  —  Dio  Cassius,  as  abridged  by 
Xiphilinus,  64,  <i. 

Zonaras  prefixes  to  his  account  of  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  which 
happened  under  Titus  (a.  d.  79),  the  following  narrative:  "Then  a  false 
Nero  appeared,  an  inhabitant  of  Asia,  [the  small  province  of  that  name  ?] 
who  was  called  Terentius  Maxinms,  resembling  Nero  in  form  and  voice, 
and  also  in  being  a  player  on  the  harp.  He  attached  to  his  party  some 
persons  from  Asia,  and  ])roceeding  to  the  Euphrates  obtained  many  more 
followers.  Finally  he  fled  to  Artabanus,  ruler  of  the  Parthians,  who, 
acting  from  anger  towards  Titus,  received  him  and  iircparcd  to  conduct 
him  to  Kome."  —  Zonaras  as  (pioted  in  Dio  Cass.  Vol.  6,  p.  567, 
Sturz's  edit.  This  Nero  can  scarcely  be  other  than  the  one  whom  Sueto- 
nius places  about  A.  T>.  88. 

According  to  Dio  Chrysostom,  Nero  "  died  solely  on  account  of  his  in- 
sult to  the  Eunuch,  since  the  latter  in  his  anger  made  known  his  designs 


NOTE   F.]  AS   HELD   BY  JEWS.  493 

angry  Parthian  king  could  so  far  calculate  on  popular  delusion 
as  to  espouse  the  cause  of  such  an  impostor.  Perhaps  the 
existence  of  a  large  Jewish  population  throughout  Asia  Minor 
may  justify  the  surmise,  that  a  stronger  popular  anticipation 
of  Nero's  return  would  exist  there  than  in  many  other  places. 

§  II.    As  held  hy  Jeivs. 

A  Sibylline  verse  concerning  Nero  has  already  been  quoted 
on  page  2-43.  He  had  passed  away  without  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian expectations  being  fultilled  by  the  destruction  of  Rome. 
This,  however,  appears  to  have  proved  no  serious  obstacle  to 
their  belief,  and  we  shall  find,  as  already  stated,  that  they  re- 
garded him  either  as  having  disappeared  and  as  hereafter  to 
return  from  Asia,  or  else  as  dead  and  about  to  rise  from  the 
underworld,  in  order  that  he  might  perform  his  part  in  the 
destruction  of  Rome.  The  anticipation  of  Nero's  return  from 
Asia  must  have  received  support  from  the  feverish  disquietude 
of  the  Romans.  But  the  expectation  that  the  underworld 
should  disgorge  him  seems  to  have  been  held  only  by  Jews, 
and  by  Jewish  and  semi-Jewish  Christians. 

Several  passages  in  the  Sibylline  Oracles  give  Jewish  views 
of  this  emperor's  return.  From  these  the  following  quota- 
tions are  made  : 

No.  1. 

"  Poets  shall  again  bewail  thrice  wretched  Greece 
When  he  from  Italy  shall  pierce  the  Isthmus  neck.^ 

to  those  about  him,  on  which  account  they  forsook  and  compelled  him 
in  some  way  or  other  to  destroy  himself;  for  even  yet  the  manner  of  his 
death  is  uncertain.  So  far,  however,  as  other  matters  are  concerned, 
nothing  hindered  his  living  all  the  time  which  all  others  wish  and  most 
are  supposed  to  live;  he  [moreover]  having  died,  as  it  were,  not  once 
only,  but  often  among  such  as  were  vehemently  persuaded  that  he  was 
alive."  — Dio  Chrysostom,  Oral.  21,  5.  The  meaning  of  this  last  ap- 
pears to  be,  that  frequent  rumors  of  his  being  alive  were  followed  by  fre- 
quent arguments  for,  or  proofs  of,  his  death,  and  that  repeated  pretenders 
to  his  name  were  repeatedly  killed.  Perhaps  it  might  be  parajjhrased  that 
he  had  to  be  repeatedly  killed  before  he  would  stay  dead. 

^  During  part  of  the  years  A.  D.  66,  67,  Nero  was  in  Greece,  where  he 
supposed  that  his  talents  as  a  musician  and  otherwise  would  be  appreci- 
ated. "While  there  he  commenced  cutting  a  channel  through  the  isthmus 
of  Corinth.  Jewish  attention  was  especially  directed  to  this  by  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  first  Jewish  prisoners  taken  by  Vespasian  were  forwarded 
to  Greece  as  laborers  upon  it  (Josephus,  Wars,  3, 10,  Ki).  It  would  almost 
seem  that  the  Jews  expected  him  on  his  supernatural  return  from  Asia  to 


494  NERO'S   RETURN.  [NOTE  F. 

The  mighty  king  of  mighty  Rome,  the  godlike  luminary, 

The  son,  as  they  say,  of  Jupiter  himself  and  august  Juno,  140 

Who  with  all-musical  voice  wooing  applause*  for  honeyed  hymns, 

Shall  destroy  multitudes,  including  his  wretched  mother. 

He  shall  flee  from  Babylon,  the  fearful  and  shameless  king 

Whom  all  men  hate,  especially  all  good  ones,  — ^ 

For  he  killed  many  and  did  violence  to  the  womb.*  14S 

He  sinned  against  his  wife,  and  was  covered  with  crimes 

He  shall  come  to  the  Medes  and  to  the  Persian  kings 

Whom  he  chiefly  loved  and  to  whom  he  showed  honor,' 

Lying  in  wait  with  these  wretches  against  the  hated  nation.® 

He  seized  the  God-begotten  temple,  and  burnt  his   fellow-citi- 
zens, 150 
The  '  Peoples,"  who  went  up  into  it,  whom  he  had  justly  praised 
with  hymns. 


finish  this  channel  as  a  means  of  shortening  his  journey  to  Rome.  See 
another  allusion  to  this  idea  under  No.  8,  on  p.  128. 

*  "  He  chose  young  men  of  the  equestrian  order,  and  above  five  thou- 
sand robust  young  fellows  from  tlie  coninion  people,  on  purpose  to  learn 
various  kinds  of  applause,  called  bombi,  imbrices,  and  tcstce,  wliich  they 
wei'e  to  practise  in  his  favor  whenever  he  performed."  .  .  .  "With  what 
extreme  anxiety  he  engaged  iu  these  contests,  with  what  keen  desire  to 
bear  away  the  prize,  and  with  how  much  awe  of  the  j\;dges  is  scarcely  to 
be  believed.  ...  In  these  contests  he  adhered  so  strictly  to  the  rules 
that  he  never  durst  spit,  nor  wipe  the  sweat  from  his  forehead  in  any 
other  way  than  with  his  sleeve.  Having,  in  the  performance  of  a  tragedy, 
dropped  his  sceptre,[?]  and  not  quickly  recovering  it,  he  was  in  a  great 
fright  lest  lie  should  be  set  aside  for  the  miscarriage,  and  could  not  regain 
his  assurance  until  an  actor  who  stood  by  swore  lie  was  certain  it  had 
not  been  observed  amid  the  acclamations  and  exultations  of  the  people. 
When  the  prize  was  adjudged  to  him,  he  always  proclaimed  it  himself; 
and  even  entered  the  lists  with  the  heralds.  That  no  memory  or  the 
least  mouunient  might  remain  of  any  other  victor  in  the  sacred  Grecian 
games,  he  ordered  all  their  statues  anil  pictures  to  be  pulled  down,  and 
dragged  away  with  hooks  and  thrown  into  the  common  sewers."  —  Sue- 
tonius, Nero,  20,  23,  24,  Bohn's  trans. 

5  An  equally  probable  translation  of  this  line  is,  "Whom  the  mass  of 
men  hate  and  also  the  aristocracy." 

^  lieferring  apparently  to  the  death  of  his  wdfe  by  his  kicking  her 
when  pregnant. 

"^  The  writer  uses  the  term  Medes  and  Persians  as  a  traditional  ap])ella- 
tion  among  the  Jews  for  the  nations  eastward  from  the  Euphrates.  IS^ero, 
just  before  going  to  Greece  in  A.  D.  66,  had  received  the  Parthian  king 
Tiridates  at  Rome  and  had  crowned  him  king  of  Armenin.  The  par- 
ticulars of  this  coronation  are  detailed  by  Dio  Cassias,  63,2-4.  The 
regard  for  a  counterfeit  Nero  which  was  subsequently  manifested  by  the 
Parthian  king  (see  note  2)  was  ])erhaps  connected  with  his  desire  of  hav- 
ing an  acknowledged  tenure  in  tlie  kingdom  of  Armenia. 

"  "The  hated  nation,"  that  is,  the  Latins. 

®  "  The  Peoples"  was  a  term  to  designate  the  dilferent  nationalities  of 


§"•] 


AS   HELD   BY  JEWS.  49^ 


When  this  took  place  tlie  creation  was  disturbed, 

Kings  perislied,^^  and  they  in  ivhom  the  government  remained 

Overthrew  the  Great  City  and  '  The  Just  Peojjle.' 

But  when  in  the  fourth  year  a  great  star  shall  shine,"  155 

—  Which  unaided  shall  humble  the  eartli,  — 
Because  of  honor  formerly  shown  to  briny  Neptune,^^ 
The  great  star  shall  descend  from  heaven  into  the  fearful  brine 
And  shall  burn  both  the  deep  sea  and  Babylon  itself. 
And  Italy  also,  on  ichose  account  there  perished  160 

Many  faithful,  consecrated  Hebrews,  and  the  True  Temi^e}^ 

Thou  shalt  sutter  evil  amidst  evil  mortals. 
Ages  long  shalt  thou  be  a  total  desert. 

Men  shall  hate  thy  locality,  for  sorcery  was  thy  delight.  les 

Adultery  and  pollution  of  boj^s  was  within  thee." 

the  Jews  (see  Note  B.  §  i.  No.  13).  Here  Nero  is  regarded  as  having 
burned  some  of  them  who  were  his  fellow-citizens.  This  would  cor- 
roborate a  surmise  elsewhere  made  (see  pp.  252,  253)  that  the  Christians 
whom  Nero  burnt  were  Jewish  ones.  It  is  possible  that  the  writer  of 
the  above  was  a  Jew  of  the  popular  party,  and  may  liave  regarded  them 
rather  in  the  light  of  maltreated  fellow-Jews  than  aliens  from  the  faith 
of  their  fatliers. 

^'^  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius  perished  within  a  year  of  each  other. 
The  government  fell  into  the  hands  of  Vespasian  and  Titus,  under  whom 
Judfea  and  Jerusalem  were  conquered.  The  italicized  lines,  if  correctly 
translated,  must  have  been  wiitten  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  in 
A.  D.'70.  This  makes  it  difficult  to  reconeile  with  the  date  of  any  comet. 
The  lines  may  be  a  subsequent  interpolation,  or  may  admit  tlie  following 
translation,  Galba,  Otho,  and  Vitellius  being  meant  by  "they"  :  — 

"  Kings  perished,  and  they  in  whom  the  government  remained 
Destroyed  themselves  against  the  Great  City  and  the  Just  Peoples." 

Or  it  may  bear  the  following  :  — 

"  Kings  perished,  even  they  in  whom  the  fjovernment  remained, 
Destroyed  the  Great  City  and  the  Just  People.''' 

According  to  this  last,  the  second  line  would  be  an  interpolation.  The 
first  line,  without  it,  gives  a  good  meaning,  but  if  read  in  connection  with 
it  requires  tlae  substitution  of  "and  "  for  "even,"  as  a  translation  of 
Kai. 

11  The  Jewish  i-ebellion  under  Nero  began  in  the  spring  of  A.  n.  65. 
In  A.  D.  69,  four  years  later,  the  comet  under  Vitellius  appeared  ;  see 
Dio  Cass.  65,  8.  The  next  one  seems  to  have  been  in  a.  d.  79  ;  see  Dio 
Cass.  66,  17. 

^-  A  Corinthian  coin  (see  Sturz's  Dio  Cassius,  Vol.  6,  p.  490,  note  82) 
with  Nero  on  one  side  and  Neptune  on  the  other,  rendeis  probable  that 
honors  to  Neptune  may  have  been  connected  with  the  inception  of  Nero's 
canal. 

1^  The  italicized  lines  are  probably  interpolated. 

"  Jlore  than  a  century  before  the  Christian  ei-a,  Cato  the  elder  com- 
plains (Pliny,  ZT.iV.  29,  7,  l)  that  the  Greeks  stigmatized  Romans  with  an 


496  NEKO'S   RETURN.  [NOTE  F. 

Effeminate,  imjust,  Avicked  city,  doomed  lieyond  others, 

Alas  for  you,  utterly  iuipure  city  of  the  Latiu  Land, 

Insane,  lover  of  vijjers,  thou  shalt  sit  a  widow  among  thy  hills, 

And  the  river  Tiber  shall  bewail  thee,  his  '^  paramour.  no 

Of  murder-stained  heart  and  God-ignoring  mind, 

You  knew  not  God's  power  nor  his  purposes. 

You  said  '  I  am  Alone  [i.  e.  unec|ualled],  no  one  can  plunder  me.' 

But  now  God,  the  Eternal,  shall  destroy  thee  and  all  thine. 

Not  a  sign  of  thee  shall  remain  in  that  land.  175 

As  formerly,  —  when  the  Great  God  sought  out  honors  for  thee,  — 

Remain,  sinner,  Alone,  amidst  burning  fire. 

Dwell  in  the  Tartarean  sinner-land  of  Hades." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  I37  - 178. 

No.   2. 
(Written  about  A.  D.  79.) 

"  The  evil  tempest  of  war  shall  come  to  the  dwellers  of  Jerusa- 
lem," 15 

From  Italy,  and  shall  lay  waste  the  great  temple  of  God. 

But  when  trusting  in  folly  [Jews]  shall  cast  away  practical  mono- 
theism 

And  commit  abominable  murder  around  the  Temple, 

Then  a  great  king  from  Italy,  like  a  [falling]  star. 

Shall  flee  invisible,  unheard  of,  beyond  the  Euphrates,  120 

After  perpetrating  an  abominable  matricide, 

And  doing  many  other  things  with  a  wicked  hand. 

Many  shall  be  slaughtered  on  the  sacred  plain  of  Rome 

When  he  flees  beyond  his  native  land. 

A  Roman  general  shall  come  into  Syria,  who,  burning  the  Tem- 
ple, 125 

Shall  kill  with  the  spear  many  dwellers  of  Jerusalem, 

epithet  borrowed  from  this  vice.  Paul's  only  discussion  of  it  is  in  a  letter 
to  the  Romans.  If  Cato  by  Greeks  meant,  as  seems  probable  from  his 
mentioning  "their  physicians,"  those  of  Asia  and  North  Egypt,  the  in- 
ference may  be  fair  that  such  vice  was  more  under  the  ban  of  jniblic 
o])inion  in  tliose  countries  than  at  Rome  or  ]ierha]is  (Xenophon,  Memo- 
riiliil.  1,  2,  ■>i\  ;ii))  in  (ireere.  Tatian  (Orat.  28)  affirms  and  Seneca  {Epist. 
95,  li)  may  imply,  that  its  chief  seat  was  at  Rome. 

1'  If  for  aqv  (corrected  by  some  editors  into  fiv)  we  read  tt^v,  the  passage 
will  give  a  meaning.  Perhaps,  however,  the  author  was  an  Italian  Jew, 
who  inadvertently  used  abi,  crq,  abv,  in  the  sense  oi  suns,  sua,  suuvi. 

IS  The  Greek  word  is  'ZbXvfioi,  which,  according  to  Passow,  was  the 
name  of  an  Asiatic  pe()i)h',  on  the  liorders  of  Lycia.  Here,  Iiowever,  it  is 
unquestionably  a  name,  either  for  the  Jews,  or  else  specially  for  tlie  in- 
habitants of  Jerusalem.  It  may  have  been  formed  from  the  last  three 
syllables  of 'lepAcroXi^ua,  the  Greek  word  for  Jerusalem.  Tlio  "abomina- 
ble nuirder  around  the  Temple  "  may  be  that  mentioned  in  Note  I.,  foot- 
note 21. 


§11.]  AS   HELD   BY  JEWS.  497 

And  shall  destroy  the  great  land  of  the  Jews  -with  its  broad  streets. 

Then  shall  an  earthquake  destroy  Salaniis  and  Paphos 

When  dark  water  shall  overwhelm  the  wave-washed  Cyprus. 

But,  when  from  the  cleft  earth  of  the  Italian  land  130 

Eddying  fire  shall  stream  toward  the  broad  heaven, 

And  shall  burn  many  cities  and  shall  destroy  men; 

And  glowing  ashes  shall  completely  fill  the  whole  atmosphere, 

And  the  flakes  shall  fall  from  heaven  like  meal, 

Then  will  be  known  the  vengeance  of  the  heavenly  God,  135 

Because  they  have  destroyed  the  blameless  race  of  practical  mono- 

theists. 
Then  westward  the  broil  of  awakening  war  shall  come, 
And  with  it  the  Roman  Fugitive,  hoisting  a  mighty  spear, 
Passing  the  Euphrates  with  many  myriads 
[Who  shall  bui'u  thee  with  fire  and  turn  all  things  into  misery.]  "  140 

Great  wealth  shall  come  to  Asia,  A\'hich  formerly  Rome,  145 

Pillaging,  laid  away  in  her  wealthy  home. 

Twice  so  much  shall  she  give  back  to  Asia. 

Then  shall  there  be  superfluous  wealth  through  war." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  4,  115  - 148. 

No.   3. 
"  There  shall  be  in  the  last  time,  at  the  close  of  the  moon, 
A  world-raging  war,  thief-like  in  deceitfulness  [of  approach.] 
From  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  come  a  matricidal  man, 
A  fugitive,  who  even  now  meditates  sharp  things  in  his  mind. 
Who  will  lay  waste  the  earth,  and  conquer  all  things,  365 

And  shall  comprehend  whatever  surpasses  comprehension  of  others. 
He  shall  immediately  seize  this  [city]  on  whose  accusation  he  was 

ruined. 
He  shall  destroy  many  men  and  great  kings, 
And  shall  burn  all  as  did  no  one  before  him. 

The  fallen  shall  he  again  from  rivalry  set  up.  370 

In  the  west  great  war  shall  exist  among  men, 
A  mountain  of  blood  shall  flow  to  the  deep  whirling  rivers. 

Fire  shall  shower  down  on  mortals  from  the  heavenly  plains, 
Fire  and  blood,  water,  lightning,  darkness  and  night  from  heaven  ; 
And  destruction  in  war,  and  mist  because  of  the  slaughter. 
And  shall  destroy  at  the  same  time  kings  and  great  ones.  380 

Then  the  lamentable  destruction  of  war  will  thus  be  ended, 
And  no  longer  will  any  one  war  with  swords  or  iron. 
Nor  with  missiles,  which  shall  not  be  lawful  again  ; 
But  The  Wise  People  which  shall  be  left,  shall  have  peace. 
Having  been  tried  of  evil,  that  thereafter  it  might  be  joyful."        385 

Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  ;ioi  -  385. 

^''  This  line  is  supplied  from  Book  13,  line  124,  where  I  suppose  it  to 
have  been  copied  out  of  tliis  connection. 

FF 


498  NERO's   RETUEN.  [NOTE   F. 

No.  4. 
The  following  is  from  a  Sibylline  document,  written,  if  its 
connection  could  be  trusted,  in  the  time  of  Commodus.  Line 
G5  mentions  three  rulers  after  Hadrian.  This  would  bring  us 
to  Commodus.  As  he,  however,  was  a  comparatively  young 
man  when  murdered,  and  the  prince  here  mentioned  is  an  old 
one,  the  present  piece  has  probably  no  connection  with  what 
precedes  it. 

"  One  of  them,  an  old  man,  shall  long  hold  the  sceptre, 
A  most  wretched  king,  who  shall  gather  the  wealth  of  the  world 
Into  his  houses  that  he  may  preserve  it,  so  that  when  there  returns  70 
From  the  liounds  of  the  earth  the  Matricidal  Fugitive, 
He,  distributing  these  things  to  all,  sliall  give  great  weaUh  to  Asia. 
And  thou  shalt  mourn,  putting  off  the  broad  purple  stripe  of  rulers," 
And  bearing  the  garments  of  mourning. 

0  boasting  prince,  offspring  of  Latin  Eome,  75 

No  longer  shall  the  renown  of  thy  boasting  exist. 
Unhappy,  thou  shalt  not  agam  stand  erect,  but  lie  prostrate. 
For  the  glory  of  thy  Eagle-bearing  legions  shall  fall. 
Whei-e  then  shall  be  thy  power  ]     What  land  thy  ally. 
Of  those  that  have  been  lawlessly  enslaved  by  thy  ambition  ?         80 
For  then  shall  be  a  conflux  of  all  earth's  mortals, 
[TVJien  the  All-ruler,  coming  to  the  judgment-seat,  shall  judge 
Hie  souls  of  living  and  dead,  and  the  whole  world. 
Parents  shall  not  he  dear  to  children  nor  children  to  parents, 
Because  of  imjnety  and  unlooked-for  tribulation}^]  85 

Thenceforward  shalt  thou  have  wailing    and  depression  and  cap- 
tivity." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  8,  C8  -  86. 

No.  5. 
In  order  to  understand  the  next  extract  the  reader  should 
be  told  that  the  Sibylline  writer  from  whom  it  is  taken  desig- 
nates the  successive  Roman  emperors  according  to  the  initial 
letters  of  their  names,  giving,  however,  not  the  initial  itself, 
but  the  number  for  which  it  was  used  in  Greek  computation. 
The  letter  N,  the  initial  of  Nero,  was  in  Greek  the  numeral 
for  fifty,  and  Nero  is  accordingly  designated  by  the  number 
fifty.   After  describing  the  preceding  emperors  he  continues  ;  — 

"  He  shall  be  ruler  whose  sign  is  fifty, 
A  fearful  serpent,  who  shall  cause  a  grievous  war, 

1"  Senators  wore  a  broad  piu'ple  stripe  called  the  lafus  davits. 
1''  Tlic  italicized  lines  break  the  connection,  and  are  probably  a  later 
addition. 


§  III.]  AS   HELD   BY   CHRISTIANS.  499 

Who  shall  destroy  the  outstretched  hands  of  his  own  race,  and  dis- 
turb all  things  ; 

Contending  in  the  pul)lic  games,  killiiig  '  The  People '  and  daring 
ten  thousand  things, 

He  shall  cut  through  the  promontory  and  defile  himself  in  the  lists. 

But  the  reprobate  shall  disapjiear.     Afterwards  he  shall  return. 

Equalling  himself  with  God,  but  [God]  shall  refute  his  pretensions." 

Sibyl.  Orac.  5,  2S  -  34. 

§  III.    As  held  hy  Christians. 

The  earliest  allusion,  in  a  Christian  writer,  to  Nero's  return 
is  perhaps  a  passage  in  the  Apocalypse  (17,  8)  :  "  The  Beast 
which  you  saw,  was  and  is  not  and  is  about  to  ascend  from 
the  abyss  and  go  (or,  '  lead  mankind  ')  to  destruction.  And  the 
inhabitants  of  the  eartli  whose  names  are  not  written  since  the 
foundation  of  the  world  in  the  Book  of  Life  will  wonder  as 
they  look  at  the  Beast,  in  that  he  was  and  is  not  and  will  re- 
appear." The  term  "  Beast  "  here  denotes  the  Roman  Emperor, 
as  elsewhere  in  the  same  book,  the  Roman  Empire.  In  the 
eleventh  verse  of  the  same  chapter  the  allusion  to  Nero  occurs 
in  a  similar  manner.  Here  the  Roman  power  is  the  Beast,  and 
its  seven  heads  are  explained  as  denoting  either  the  seven 
hills  on  which  Rome  sits,  or  seven  of  her  rulers.  "  And  tlie 
Beast  which  was  and  is  not,  will  be  the  eighth  and  is  one  of 
the  seven,  and  will  go  (or,  'lead  mankind')  to  destruction. 

In  the  second,  third,  and  beginning  of  the  fourth  centuries 
the  Jewish  ideas  concerning  Nero  seem  to  have  found  consid- 
erable currency  among  that  semi-Jewish  class  of  Christians, 
■who  regarded  themselves  as  the  orthodox  of  their  day.  But 
they  appear  also  in  the  Ascension  of  Isaiah,-"  in  the  following 
passage  :  — 

"  And  after  its  completion  Berial  shall  descend,  the  mighty 
angel,  the  prince  of  this  world,  which  he  has  possessed  from 
its  creation.     He  shall  descend  from  the  firmament  in  the 


2"  I  have  in  another  work  (Underworld  Mission,  p.  8,  compare 
§22,  4,  5,  and  Note  E.)  used  the  term  "semi-Jewish"  as  a  convenient 
designation  for  that  class  of  Christians  who  shared  with  most  Asiatic 
Jews  a  belief  in  the  physical  resurrection,  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem, 
the  millennium,  and  some  other  views.  The  Alexandrine  Jews  and 
Christians  did  not  shai-e  these  views.  The  author  of  Isaiah's  Ascension 
was  far  removed  from  them.  Yet  his  affinity  with  Judaism,  as  it  must 
have  existed  in  Egypt,  is  very  marked.  This  affinity,  however,  is 
strongly  blended  with  individual  extravagances. 


500  NElf.O'S   EETUEN.  [NOTE    F. 

form  of  a  man,  an  impious  monarch,  the  murderer  of  his 
MOTHER,  in  the  form  of  him,  the  sovereign  of  the  world.  The 
plant  which  the  twelve  Apostles  of  the  Beloved  have  planted, 
shall  he  pluck  away  from  them ;  into  his  hand  shall  it  be 
given.  The  angel  Berial,  this  king,  shall  come,  and  with  him 
shall  come  all  the  powers  of  the  world,  who  in  evei-ything 
shall  be  obedient  to  his  will.  At  his  command  the  sun  shall 
rise  by  night,  and  the  moon  shall  he  cause  to  appear  at  the 
sixth  hour.  Everything  which  he  shall  wish  to  eft'ect  in  the 
world  shall  he  bring  to  pass.  He  shall  address  the  Beloved  and 
say,  'I  am  (iod,  and  before  me  there  was  none,  no,  not  any.' 
Then  shall  the  whole  world  believe  in  him.  Tliey  shall  sacri- 
fice to  him,  and  serve  him,  saying,  '  He  is  God,  and  beside  him 
there  is  no  other  God.'  Many  likewise  of  those  who  had  con- 
curred in  the  reception  of  the  Beloved,  shall  turn  after  him. 
And  the  power  of  his  prodigies  shall  be  displayed  in  every  city 
and  country.  In  every  city  also  shall  his  image  be  erected. 
And  he  shall  have  power  three  years  seven  months  and 
twenty-seven  days.  And  when  many  believers  and  saints 
shall  have  seen  him,  for  v/hom  they  shall  wait,  who  was  cruci- 
fied, Jesus  the  Lord  Christ,  after  that  I  Isaiah  have  seen  him, 
who  was  crucified  and  ascended,  then  shall  a  few  only  of  those, 
who  shall  believe  in  him,  be  left  to  him  in  those  days,  while 
his  servants  shall  fly  from  desert  to  desert,  expecting  his  com- 
ing. And  after  three  hundred  and  thirty-two  days  the  Lord 
shall  come  with  his  angels  and  holy  powers  from  the  seventh 
heaven,  in  the  splendor  of  that  heaven,  and  di'ag  Berial  and 
his  powers  into  Gehenna."  ^^ 

Next  in  order  of  time  after  the  foregoing  writer  is  Commo- 
dianus,^  who  lived  probably  in  tlie  earlier  half  of  the  third 
century.  He  wrote  a  book  called  Instructions,  each  chapter  of 
which  is  a  separate  acrostic,  its  subject  being  denoted  b}^  the 
first  letters  of  the  lines.  The  chapter  "  Concerning  the  Time 
OP  Antichrist  "  is  as  follows  :  — 

21  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  4,  2-u. 

2"-^  Commodianiis  wrote  evidently  before  tlie  fall  of  heatlicnism, 
that  is,  liclorit  the  time  of  Constantine.  He  writes  (1,  i; ;  8,  '.i ;  25,  lO, 
]4)  as  if  the  extravagant  use  of  the  Old  Testament  hy  Clu'istians  liad  not 
yet  fallen  into  discredit  (see  pp.  344-348,  and  foot-notes  38,  39,  40),  and 
therefore  wrote  proliably  before  the  second  half  of  the  third  century.  In 
6,  2,  'A,  of  his  Tiistnictinna,  moreover,  he  asks  the  keathens,  "  Why  have 
you  remained  [literally,  been]  children  for  two  hundred  yoaraV  Its  only 
natural  (explanation  implies  that  he  wrote  about  two  hundred  years  after 
the  birth,  or  else  after  the  ministry,  of  Christ. 


§111.]  AS   HELD   BY   CHRISTIANS.  501 

"  Isaiah  said,'''  This  is  the  man  who  shall  move  the  world, 
And  likewise  Kings,  —  under  whom  the  earth  shall  he  made  a  desert. 
Hear  —  since  the  projjhet  i'oi*etold  concerning  him, 
I  have  spoken  nothing  ehiborately,  but  carelessly. 
—  The  world  shall  coiue  to  an  end  when  he  shall  appear. 
He  will  divide  the  world  among  three  ^*  commanders. 
But  when  Nero  shall  have  been  raised  from  the  Underworld, 
Elijah  will  come  lirst  to  seal  the  chosen ; 
During  which  things  Africa  and  the  Arctic  nations  — 
The  whole  earth  —  will  tremble  everywhere  for  seven  years. 
Elijah  will  occupy  half  and  Nero  half  that  period. 
Then  impure  Babylon  being  reduced  to  ashes, 
The  Latin  victor  shall  go  thence  to  Jerusalem, 
And  shall  then  say,  '  I  am  Christ  to  whom  you  are  accustomed  to 

And  indeed  the  '  natural '  men  being  deceived  will  praise  him, 
Since  his  false  prophet  will  do  many  miracles. 
Especially  to  create  beUef  in  him,  an  image  shall  talk."  ^ 


Towards  the  close  of  the  third  century,  say  a.  d.  270  —  300, 
may  be  placed  Victorinus  of  Pettaw  (see  iu  Smith's  Dic- 
tionary, Victorinus,  No.  1,  in  Vol.  3,  p.  1258),  who  wrote  a 
commentary  on  the  Apocalypse.  Portions  of  a  commentary 
under  his  name  are  still  extant,  which,  however,  are  generally 
regarded  as  interpolated,  if  not  composed  by  others.  From 
whatever  hands  the  fragments  left  us  may  have  come,  the 
poi'tion  hereinafter  translated  was  at  all  events  written  before 
the  belief  in  Nero's  return  had  died  out.  According  to  its 
author,  "  The  seven  heads  are  hills  on  which  the  woman  — 
that  is,  the  Roman  power  ■ —  lias  its  seat.  And  there  are  also 
seven  kings.  .  .  .  One  of  the  heads,  however,  vjas  slaughtered  to 
death,  and  its  death-iuound  cured  (Rev.  13,  3).  This  means 
Nero.  For  it  is  certain  that,  when  the  cavalry  sent  by  the 
Senate  were  following  him,  he  cut  his  own  throat.  This 
man,  resuscitated,  God  will  send  as  a  worthy  king  to  worthy 
[subjects],  and  a  Messiah  such  as  the  Jews  have  deserved. 
.  .  .  He  will  so  act,  that  they  will  call  him  the  Messiah.  But 
that  he  shall  rise  from  the  Underworld,  we  have  already  stated 
in  the  words  of  Isaiah,  Water  shall  nourish  him,  and  the  Abyss 


23  Isaiah,  14,  ifi,  17. 

^*  An  idea  borrowed  ]ivobably  from  Sibylline  predictions  (see  pp.  120, 
121,  and  foot-note  8,  beginning  on  the  former)  that  "Three"  should 
destroy  Kome. 

^  Commodianus,  Instructions,  41. 


502  need's  eetuex.  [note  f. 

shall  give  him  growth}^  .  .  .  The  false  prophet  .  .  .  shall  cause 
a  golden  image  of  Antichrist  to  be  placed  in  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem,  and  a  refugee  angel  [that  is,  one  of  the  heathen 
deities  whom  the  early  Christians  identified  with  the  angels 
that  had  deserted  their  heavenly  abodes]  shall  enter  into  it 

i.  e.  into  the  image]  and  shall  thence  utter  words  and  declare 

nien's]  fates." "'' 

Next  on  our  list  chronologically  should  perhaps  come  Lac- 
tantius,  but  as  there  may  be  a  question  whether  his  undoubted 
writings  refer  to  Nero's  return,  his  statement  in  them  is  trans- 
ferred for  the  reader's  inspection  to  a  note."^ 

There  is,  however,  a  work.  On  the  Death  of  Persecutors, 
which,  by  many,  is  supposed  to  proceed  from  Lactantius ; 
but  which,  by  Le  Nourry,  has  been  attributed  to  another 
writer,  Lucius  Csecilius,  of  about  the  same  epoch ;  that  is, 
about  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century.  In  this  work 
we  are  told  of  Nero's  persecution,  and  then  follows  a  passage 
which  implies  that  the  confidence  among  Christians  in  Nero's 
return  had  already  become  somewhat  weakened.  Its  words 
are  :  "  Therefore,  the  impotent  tyrant,  cast  from  the  height 
of  cominand  and  rolled  down  from  his  summit,  was  nowhere 
at  once  to  be  found,  so  that  not  even  a  place  of  sepulchre 

^^  Quoted  from  Ezekiel  31,  4,  according  to  the  Septuagiiit,  or  ac- 
cording to  some  Latin  translation  made  therefrom.  The  quotation  is  of 
course  from  memory,  though  this  hardly  excuses  such  a  gross  niisajjpli- 
cation  of  the  passage. 

-^  The  Latin  original  of  the  above  and  more  from  the  same  commentary 
may  be  found  in  Stuart,  On  the  Ajmcahjpse,  Vol.  1,  p]).  494,  495. 

iB  "  When  the  conclusion  of  the  ages  shall  be  at  hand,  a  great  pi'ophet 
shall  be  sent  by  God  .  .  .  and,  his  works  being  linished,  another  king 
shall  arise  out  of  Syria,  born  of  an  evil  spirit,  an  overthrower  and  de- 
stroyer of  the  human  race,  who  shall  destroy  both  what  was  left  by  the 
previous  wicked  one  [a  previously  mentioned  king]  and  also  the  wicked 
one  himself.  This  one  will  contend  against  the  projihet  of  God,  shall 
conquer  and  kill  him  and  allow  him  to  lie  unburied.  .  .  .  This  king 
shall  be  wicked  beyond  measure,  and  a  prophet  of  lies,  and  shall  con- 
stitute and  call  himself  a  god  and  order  himself  to  be  worshi[iped  as  the 
Son  of  God,  and  power  shall  be  given  him  to  do  signs  and  ]irodigies,  bj' 
the  sight  of  which  he  shall  ensnare  men  to  adore  him.  He  will  conunand 
fire  to  descend  from  heaven,  and  the  sun  to  stand  still  in  its  course,  and 
an  image  to  speak." — Lactantius,  I)iv.  Inst.  7,  IT. 

]f  we  regard  the  extract  alxivc,  from  tlu;  work  On  the  Death  of  Perse- 
cutors, as  written  by  Lactantius,  it  would  imply  either  that  the  foregoing 
passage,  notwithstanding  its  similarity  of  phraseology  to  some  other  quo- 
tations about  Nero,  was  not  intended  as  an  allusion  to  that  monarch,  but 
merely  a  description  of  Antichrist,  whoever  he  might  be,  or  else  we  should 
have  to  suppose  that  Lactantius  hold  different  views  at  diflerent  times. 


§  III.]  AS   HELD   BY   CHRISTIANS.  503 

appeared  in  the  earth  for  so  evil  a  beast.  Whence  some,  -who 
rave,  deem  him  translated  and  reserved  alive  because  Sibylla 
savs  that  a  matricide  refugee  should  come  from  the  bounds 
[of  the  earth],  so  that  because  he  was  the  first  persecutor  he 
should  also  be  the  last,  and  should  precede  the  advent  of 
Antichrist.  ...  In  the  same  manner  also  they  think  that 
Nero  will  come  as  precursor  of  the  Devil,  and  forerunner  of 
his  coming  to  lay  waste  the  earth  and  destroy  tlie  human 
race.    " 

About  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  or  the  beginning  of 
the  fifth,  lived  Sulpicius  Severus,  an  ecclesiastical  historian, 
who  {Hist.  Sacra,  2,  28,  29)  gives  us  information  that  in  his 
time  the  relics  of  former  belief  still  found  place  in  many  minds. 
According  to  him,  "  Nero,  .  ,  .  the  basest  of  all  men  and  even 
of  monsters,  was  well  worthy  of  being  the  first  persecutor. 
I  know  not  whether  he  may  be  the  last,  since  it  is  the  cur- 
rent opinion  of  many  that  he  is  yet  to  come  as  Antichrist. 
...  It  is  uncertain  whether  he  destroyed  himself,  .  .  whence 
it  is  believed  that  although  he  may  have  pierced  himself 
with  a  sword,  yet  he  was  saved  by  the  cure  of  his  wound, 
in  accordance  with  that  which  is  written  [Rev.  13,  3],  And 
his  deadly  %vound  ivas  healed.  At  the  close  of  the  age 
he  is  to  be  sent  again,  that  he  may  exercise  the  mystery  of 
iniquify.^''^ 

After  him  comes  Augustine,  who  is  said  to  have  begun  his 
woi'k,  De  Clvitate  Dei,  about  A.  D.  413  and  finished  it  about 
A.  D.  426.  In  this  work  he  comments  as  follows  on  the  pas- 
sage of  2  Thess.  2,  7  :  "  Only  he  toho  restrains  unll  restrain 
until  he  shall  be  done  away  with,  and  then  ivill  be  revealed  that 
wicked  one."  "  I  confess  myself  wholly  ignorant,"  saj's  An- 
gustine,  "  of  what  (Paul)  meant,  but  will  not  withhold  such 
surmises  of  men  as  I  have  been  able  to  hear  or  read  on  the 
subject.  Some  think  that  this  was  said  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
and  that  moreover  the  Apostle  Paul  did  not  wish  to  write  it 
plainly  lest  he  should  incur  the  reproach  of  wishing  ill  to  the 
Roman  Empire,  when  he  ought  to  hope  that  it  would  be  eter- 
nal. So  that  in  saying,  The  mystery  of  iniquity  already  ivories, 
he  wished  Nero  to  be  understood,  whose  deeds  already  ap- 
peared as  those  of  Antichrist.  Therefore  some  suppose  that 
he  is  to  come  to  life  again  and  will  be  Antichrist.  Others 
indeed  do  not  even  deem  him  killed,  but  rather  withdrawn,  so 

29  On  the  Death  of  Persecutors,  c.  2. 

^  De  la  Eigne,  Bibliotheca  Patrum,  Vol.  7,  col.  268  D,  269  C. 


504  TIBEKIUS.  [note   G. 

that  he  might  be  regarded  as  killed,  and  suppose  him  to  be 
hiddeu  away  in  the  vigor  of  that  time  of  life  in  wliich  he  was 
when  [first]  thonght  to  be  destroyed,  and  that  in  his  own  time 
he  will  be  revealed  and  restored  to  power.  But  the  presump- 
tion of  those  who  thus  think  is  to  me  wonderful.  Yet  as  to 
the  apostle's  statement,  —  Only  he  ivho  restrains  u'ili  restrain 
until  he  shall  be  done  away  ivith, — it  is  without  absurdity  re- 
garded as  spoken  of  the  Roman  Empire."  ^^  Augustine  can- 
not have  noticed  that  when  Paul  wrote  to  the  Thessalonians, 
Nero  had  not  yet  become  emperor. 


NOTE  a 

TIBERIUS. 

§  I.    His  Character. 

The  personal  character  and  political  tendencies  of  the  Em- 
peror Tiberius  have  an  indirect  connection  with  the  general 
subject  of  this  work ;  yet  a  chief  motive  for  the  following 
note  is  the  desire  of  contributing  towards  an  appreciation 
of  one  who,  after  laboring  faithfully  by  precept  and  exam- 
ple in  behalf  of  temperance  and  frugality,  rectitude  and 
kindness,  has  been  misrepresented  as  a  brutal  and  despotic 
debauchee. 

If  we  ask  why  Tiberius  should  have  been  so  traduced,  there 
are  two  answers,  one  applicaljle  to  the  charge  of  despotism, 
the  other  to  that  of  debauchery.  The  former  can  be  best 
comprehended  by  such  as  appreciate  the  degree  in  which  the 
privileged  classes  had  come  to  regard  peculation,  bribery,  and 
extortion  as  their  well-settled  right.^      When  Tiberius,  with 


31  De  Civitatc  Dei,  20,  in. 

^  "The  equites  abused  their  power,  as  the  Senate  liad  done  before 
them.  As  fanners  of  the  public  revenues,  they  committed  peculation 
and  extortion  with  an  liabitual  im]iunity,  which  assumed  in  their  own 
view  the  complexion  of  a  right.  When  accused  they  were  tried  by  ac- 
complices and  i)artisans.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  in  prosecutions  against 
senators  of  the  oj^posite  faction,  the  equites  had  more  regard  to  j)olitical 
animosity  than  to  justice.  Even  in  ordinary  cases,  where  ])arty  feeling 
was  not  concerned,  they  allowed  tlu'ir  judicial  votes  to  be  imrclmsed  by 
bribery  and  corrupt  influence."- — Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.,  1,  p.  1079,  col. 


§^] 


HIS   CHARACTER.  501 


no  exercise  of  arbitrary  power,  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his 
personal  and  official  influence  against  such  procedures,  they 
resented  it,'*  and  as  they  were  the  writers  of  history,  their 
feelings  have  overlaid  their  facts.  The  charge  of  debauchery 
can  be  better  weighed  and  understood  after  an  examination 
of  his  life. 

Before  proceeding  it  deserves  note,  that  Tiberius  encouraged 
freedom  of  speech  and  neglected  any  disparagement  of  him- 
self j^  yet  Tacitus,  a  lifetime  later,  could  find  no  writers  in 

2,  art.  Drusus,  No.  6.  These  remarks  hold  equally  true  of  the  Senate, 
which  was  generally  regarded  (Pliny,  Jun.,  Upist.  9,  18,  §  21,  quoted  in 
Ch.  X.  note  104)  as  severe  towards  all  faults  but  its  own. 

^  It  has  already  been  mentioned  (Note  C,  foot-note  18)  that  the  pres- 
ence of  Tiberius  in  a  suboi'dinate  seat  at  trials,  ])revented  bribery  and 
corruption.  On  this  Tacitus  remaiks  (An.  1,  7.i):  "Though  justice 
was  thereby  furthered,  liberty  was  impaired."  This  liberty  can  scarcely 
have  been  aught  save  that  of  wrong-doing.  No  hint  is  given  that  Tibe- 
rius interfered  with  any  pretor's  honest  exercise  of  judgment.  His 
course  in  the  Senate  precludes  such  supposition. 

3  "  He  remained  unmoved  at  all  the  aspersions,  scandalous  reports, 
and  lampoons  which  were  spread  against  him  or  his  relations  ;  declar- 
ing, 'In  a  free  state,  both  the  tongue  and  the  mind  ought  to  be  free.' 
Upon  the  Senate's  desiring  that  some  notice  might  be  taken  of  these 
ofiences,  and  the  persons  chai-ged  with  them,  he  replied,  '  We  have  not 
so  much  time  upon  our  hands  that  we  ought  to  involve  our.selves  in  more 
business.  If  you  once  make  an  opening  for  such  jjroceedings,  you  will 
soon  have  nothing  else  to  do.  All  private  quarrels  will  be  brought  be- 
fore you  under  that  pretence.'  There  is  extant  also  an  utterance  by  him 
in  the  Senate  jKrxivilis,  which  is  that  of  a  model  citizen.  [After  putting 
a  good  explanation  on  a  perverted  report  of  some  one's  language  ?]  '  If 
indeed  he  have  spoken  otherwise  I  will  make  it  a  point  to  explain  [to 
him]  my  actions  and  remarks.  If  he  should  persist,  1  shall  reciprocate 
his  dislike.'  "  —  Sueton.  Tib.  28,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

In  the  following  we  must  remember  that  the  Senate  (see  p.  179)  had, 
as  a  stroke  of  polic}^  deified  Augustus,  and  that  Tibeiius  could  only  by 
defying  its  authority  and  enactments  exempt  any  one  from  legally  brought 
charges  of  vilifying  him.  "An  informer  [prosecutor  on  shares]  charged 
Apnleia  Varilia  .  .  .  with  vilifying  the  deified  Augustus,  Tiberius,  and 
his  mother.  .  .  .  Tiberius  desired  that  a  distinction  should  be  made  : 
'  If  she  had  spoken  irreverently  of  Augustus  she  [if  the  words  of  Tiberius 
have  not  been  altered]  must  be  condemned,  but  for  invectives  against 
himself  he  would  not  have  her  called  to  account.'  The  consul  asked  him 
what  were  his  sentiments  respecting  the  aspersions  of  his  mother,  which 
the  accused  was  charged  with  uttering.  To  this  he  made  no  answer,  but 
at  the  next  sitting  of  the  Senate  he  prayed  too  in  her  name,  '  that  no 
words  in  whatsoever  manner  spoken  against  her  might  be  imputed  to  any 
one  as  a  crime.' "^ — Tacitus,  An.  2,  50,  Bohn's  trans.  "This  .  .  . 
series  of  sad  events  was  interrupted  by  a  degree  of  joy  from  the  pardon 
extended  by  Tiberius  to  Cominius,  who  had  been  convicted  of  writing 
defamatory  verses  upon  him. "^Tacitus,  A71.  4,  31,  Bohn's  trans.  "Of 
22 


506  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

his  reign  who  spoke  evil  of  him.*  That  writer  was  certainly 
no  friend  of  Tiberius,  and  what  he  says,  therefore  (under  a.  d. 
23),  concerning  the  first  ten  years  of  his  administration,  need 
not  be  suspected  of  any  coloring  in  the  emperor's  favor.^ 

Prominent  among  the  characteristics  of  Tiberius  was  moral 
earnestness.  When  a  governor's  rapacity  had  become  mani- 
fest he  broke  off  social  intercourse  with  him  ;  and  when  the 
man  committed  suicide,  either  to  avoid  the  shame  of  condem- 
nation or  the  confiscation  of  his  ill-acquired  property,  Tiberius 
wrote  to  the  Senate  lU'ging  the  impropriety  of  giving  social 
standing  to  such  a  man,  and  condemning  the  idea  that  the 
disgrace  of  his  conduct  was  I'emoved,  or  shifted  to  others,  by 
his  suicide.^ 


disrespect  towards  any  one,  or  unbelief  in  [the  divinity  of]  any  one,  .  ,  . 
he  made  very  slight  accoiuit,  nor  diii  he  ever  attend  to  such  allegation  [of 
offence]  touching  himself."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  o  ;  compare  note  11. 

*  "As  to  Tiberius,  Caligula,  Claudius,  and  Nero,  whilst  they  yet 
reigned  the  histories  of  their  times  were  falsified  through  fear  ;  and  after 
they  had  fiillen,  they  were  written  luider  the  influence  of  recent  detesta- 
tion."—  Tacitus,  An.  1,  l,  Bohn's  trans. 

^  The  following  is  such  a  recantation  of  statements  and  insinuations 
scattered  by  Tacitus  through  his  first  three  books,  as  to  suggest  that 
those  had  been  first  published,  and  that,  when  Book  4  a[)peared,  public 
opinion  compelled  a  retraction:  "All  the  public,  and  every  private 
business  of  moment  was  managed  by  the  Scmate  :  to  the  leading  mem- 
bers he  allowed  liberty  of  debate  :  those  who  deviated  into  flattery,  he 
himself  checked  :  in  conferring  preferments,  he  was  guided  by  merit,  by 
ancient  nobility, (?)  renown  in  war,(?)  and  distinguished  civil  accomplish- 
ments ;  insomuch  that  it  was  agreed  that  none  had  greater  pretensions. 
The  consuls  and  the  pretors  retained  the  usual  distinctions  of  their 
offices  ;  inferior  magistrates,  the  exercise  of  their  authority  ;  and  the  laws, 
except  the  inquisition  for  bad  citizenship,  were  beneticially  adnanistered. 
The  tithes,  taxes,  and  all  jiublic  receipts  were  directed  by  companies  of 
Roman  knights  :  the  management  of  his  own  estates  he  committed  only 
to  men  of  eminent  probity  ;  and  to  some  from  their  reputation,  though 
iniknown  to  him  :  and  when  once  engageil,  they  were  continued,  without 
any  restriction  of  terra  ;  since  most  of  them  grew  old  in  the  same  employ- 
ments. .  .  .  He  took  care  that  the  provinces  should  not  be  oppressed 
with  new  impositions  ;  and  that  the  existing  burdens  should  not  be  ren- 
dered intolerable  by  rapacity  or  severity  in  the  magistrates  :  CORPORAL 

PUNISH  MEXT.S  AND  CONFISCATIONS  OF  (JOODS  WEllK  UNKNOWN. 

"The  emperor's  lands  in  Italy  were  small,  and  thinly  scattered  ;  the 
behavior  [or  else  the  number]  of  his  slaves  modest ;  the  freiulmen  in  his 
house  few  ;  his  disputes  with  ]irivate  individuals  were  determined  by  the 
courts  and  the  law."  — Tacitus,  An.  4,  n,  7,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 
This  is  the  person  of  whom  Tacitus  had  previously  alleged  (A».  1,  7) 
that  "all  things  disgraceful  were,  because  of  their  truth,  believed  to  have 
been  uttered  [by  others]." 

^  "  Pomponius   Labeo,  who,  as  I  have   mentioned,   was  governor  of 


§1.] 


HIS   CHAKACTER.  507 


Moral  earnestness  imparts  early  development,  and  elicits 
recognition  thereof  from  others.  There  is  hardly  a  better 
criterion  of  its  existence  than  to  find  maturity  attributed  to 
youth,  and  to  see  age  deferential  towards  early  years.  We 
have  this  testimony  to  Tiberius  from  outsiders''  and  also  from 
a  step-father  who  longed  for  his  counsel  in  difficulty  and  for 
his  personal  influence  in  moments  of  irritation.^  The  fact  de- 
serves to  be  pondered,  that  the —  not  always  seemly  — jests 
of  Augustus  would  die  upon  his  lips  when  Tibei'ius  ap- 
proached.^ 

Moral  earnestness  is  independent  of  party,  and  not  blunted 
by  prevalent  inditterence  to  venality.  When  a  corrupt  judge 
of  the  privileged  classes  needed  punishment,^"  Tiberius  spoke 


McEsia,  opening  his  veins  poured  out  his  life-blood  ;  his  wife  Paxiea,  in 
emulation  of  his  example,  did  the  same.  The  dread  of  falling  by  the 
executioner  made  deaths  of  this  sort  a  welcome  resource  ;  in  addition  to 
which,  those  who  were  condemned  forfeited  their  estates,  and  were  de- 
barred the  rights  of  burial  ;  of  such  as  made  away  with  themselves,  the 
bodies  were  interred,  and  the  wills  were  valid,  the  reward  of  their  despatch  ! 
Tiberius,  however,  in  a  letter  to  the  Senate,  argued  '  that  it  was  the 
usage  of  their  ancestors  [?],  when  they  would  renounce  the  friendship  of 
any  one,  to  forbid  him  their  house,  and  thus  put  an  end  to  all  gracious 
intercourse  :  a  usage  he  had  repeated  in  the  case  of  Labeo  ;  but  he  who 
was  pressed  with  a  charge  of  maladministration,  and  other  crimes,  had 
sought  to  veil  his  guilt  by  an  act  reflecting  odium  upon  others  ;  while 
his  wife  had  alarmed  herself  unnecessarily,  for  though  guilty,  she  was 
nevertheless  in  no  danger.'  "  — Tacitus,  Jn.  6,  -29.  A  comparison  with 
the  foregoing  of  Note  C,  foot-note  17,  implies,  apparently,  that  the  Sen- 
ate, in  opposition  to  the  remonstrance  of  Tiberius,  must,  at  some  date 
since  the  incident  there  mentioned,  have  granted  pecuniary  indemnity  to 
suicides.  The  appeal  of  Tiberius  to  "usage  of  their  ancestors"  (if  not 
fabricated  by  Tacitus),  was  made  to  the  highest  code  of  rectitude  acknowl- 
edged by  the  liody  which  he  was  addressing. 

''  "He  (Tiberius),  while  yet  young,  was  called  the  old  man  because  of 
reverence  for  his  thoughtfulness." — Philo,  Embassy,  21  ;  0pp.  p.  696 
(Bohn's  trans.  4,  pp.  130,  131). 

*  "  '  If  anything  [Augustus  wrote]  has  occurred  requiring  more  careful 
thought  than  usual,  or  at  which  I  am  angry,  ...  I  long  for  my  Tiberius.'  " 
—  Sueton.  Tib.  21. 

^  "  I  do  not  ignore  what  some  have  handed  down,  that  Augustus,  not 
secretly,  but  openly,  so  disapproved  (?)  his  austerity,  vionnn  diritafr.m, 
that  he  sometimes,  on  his  entrance,  broke  off"  his  most  careless  and  jovial 
remarks."  —  Sueton.  Tib.  21. 

^°  "But  in  the  case  of  Publius  Suilius,  formerly  qufestor  to  Germanicus, 
now  convicted  of  having  taken  money  in  an  affair  where  he  was  to  decree 
as  a  judge,  and  for  which  he  was  about  to  be  excluded  from  Italy,  the 
emperor  voted  for  his  banishment  into  an  island,  with  such  earnestness 
of  feeling,  that  with  the  solemnity  of  an  oath  he  declared  it  '  for  the  in- 


508  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

no  uncertain  language,  and  when  one  of  his  own  fiscal  agents 
tried  imposition  he  was  equally  plain.^^ 

Moral  earnestness  —  by  which  must  not  be  understood  per- 
sonal excitability  on  moral  questions  —  is  apt  to  recognize 
and  respect  the  individual  responsibility  of  others.  Tiberius 
recognized  the  individual  responsibility  of  senators,  avoided 
interfering  with  it,  and  did  what  he  could  to  make  them  feel 
it.  An  instance  has  already  been  given ^^  of  a  question  in 
which  he  took  much  interest.  Other  illustrations  of  this  trait 
are  given  below. ^^ 


terest  of  the  commonwealth '  :  a  proceeding  which,  though  at  the  time 
regarded  as  harsh,  turned  afterwaids  to  his  praise,  when  Siiilius  returned 
to  Rome  ;  a  following  age  saw  that  exile  possessed  of  extravagant  power  ; 
abandoned  to  venality,  and  employing  his  friendship  with  Claudius, 
which  he  long  enjoyed,  in  all  cases  for  his  own  advancement,  but  never  in 
the  cause  of  virtue."  —  Tacitus,  An.  4,  31,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

11  "For  by  the  Senate  even  yet  all  atfairs  were  transacted  ;  insomuch 
that  Lucilius  Capito,  the  em[)eror's  comptroller  in  Asia,  was,  at  the  accu- 
sation of  that  province,  put  upon  his  defence  before  them  ;  the  emperor 
protesting  with  great  earnestness,  'that  from  him  Lucilius  had  no  author- 
ity but  over  his  slaves,  and  in  collecting  his  domestic  rents  ;  that  if  he 
had  usurped  the  jurisdiction  of  pretor,  and  employed  military  force,  he 
had  so  far  violated  his  orders  ;  they  should  therefore  hear  the  allegations 
of  the  province." — Tacitus,  An.  4,  1.5,  Bohn's  trans. 

1^  See  in  note  6  of  Ch.  V.  a  citation  from  Suetonius,  Tib.  31.  It  may 
profitably  be  compared  with  action  on  a  similar  question  in  the  time  of 
Trajan  (see  Ch.  X.  foot-note  59),  who  did  not  even  submit  it  to  the  Sen- 
ate, but  decided  it  with  his  council. 

1^  "  111  the  respect  he  paid  to  individuals,  or  the  whole  body  of  the  Sen- 
ate, he  went  lieyond  all  bounds.  Upon  his  differing  with  Quintus  Haterius 
in  the  Senate-house,  '  Pardon  me,  sir,'  he  said,  '  I  beseech  you,  if  I  shall 
as  a  senator,  speak  my  mind  very  freely  in  opposition  to  you.'  .  .  .  All 
affairs,  whether  of  great  or  small  importance,  public  or  private,  were  laid 
before  the  Senate.  Taxes  and  monopolies,  the  erecting  or  repairing 
edifices,  levying  and  disbanding  soldiers,  the  disposal  of  the  legions  and 
auxiliary  forces  in  the  provinces,  the  appointment  of  generals  for  the 
management  of  extraordinary  wars,  and  the  answers  to  letters  from  foreign 
princes,  were  all  submitted  to  the  Senate.  He  compelled  the  commander 
of  a  troop  of  horse,  who  was  accused  of  robbery  attended  with  violence,  to 
plead  his  cause  before  the  Senate.  He  nevkr  enteiied  the  Senate- 
liorsE  BUT  unattended  ;  and  being  once  brought  thither  in  a  litter, 
because  he  was  indisposed,  he  dismissed  his  attendants  at  the  door. 

""When  some  decrees  were  made  contiiiry  to  his  oj)inion,  he  did  not 
even  make  any  comjilaint.  And  though  he  thought  that  no  magistrates 
after  their  nomination  should  be  allowed  to  absent  themselves  from  the 
cit}',  but  reside  in  it  constantly,  to  fulfil  their  duties  in  jierson,  a  pretor 
elect  obtained  lilierty  to  depart  under  the  honorary  title  of  a  Icgate-at- 
large.  .  .   .  All  other  things  of  a  public  nature  were  likewise  transacted 


§^-] 


HIS   CHARACTER.  500 


Moral  earnestness  is  not  fond  of  flattery  from,  nor  of  un- 
manly behavior  in,  others.  Tiberius  was  no  exception  to  this 
rule."  It  is  not  apt  to  aim  either  at  expense  or  display. 
Tiberius  tried,  not  by  force,  but  by  precept  and  example,  to 
inculcate   frugality  and  temperance.^'     One   of  his  efforts  in 


by  the  magistrates,  and  in  the  usual  forms  ;  ...  he  used  to  rise  up  as 
the  consuls  approached,  and  give  them  the  way. 

"  He  reprimanded  some  persons  of  consular  rank  in  command  of  armies 
for  not  writing  to  the  Senate  an  account  of  their  proceedings,  and  for 
consulting  him  about  the  distribution  of  military  rewards  ;  as  if  they 
themselves  had  not  a  right  to  bestow  them  as  they  judged  proper." — 
Sueton.  Tib.  29  -  32,  Bohn's  trans,  alt'd. 

Tiberius  "never  undertook  anything  of  moment  without  communicat- 
ing it  to  the  others  [the  Senate].  Proposing  his  own  view,  he  not  only 
conceded  to  every  one  freedom  to  oppose  it,  but  bore  at  times  votes  [or 
perhaps  '  decrees ']  contrary  to  his  view,  for  he  often  voted.  His  son 
Drusus  habitually  did  it  in  couimon  with  the  other  senators,  sometimes 
first,  sometimes  after  others  ;  but  as  regards  himself,  sometimes  he  was 
silent ;  sometimes  after  several  others  [had  spoken]  he  expressed  himself 
fully;  sometimes  last  of  all.  For  the  most  part,  that  he  might  not  seem 
to  interfere  with  their  freedom  of  utterance,  his  phraseology  was,  '  If  I 
WERE  TO  GIVE  MY  OPINION,  I  would  Say  SO  and  so.'  This  was  equiva- 
lent to  the  usual  form,  yet  the  others  were  not  restrained  by  it  from 
speaking  their  minds.  Often  when  he  had  given  an  opinion  subsequent 
speakers  took  opposite  ground,  and  sometimes  carried  it.  Yet  he  never 
manifested  anger  thereat."  — Dio  Cass.  57,  7. 

1*  "  He  had  such  an  aversion  to  flattery,  that  he  would  never  suffer  any 
senator  to  attend  his  litter,  either  as  a  civility  or  upon  business.  And 
when  a  man  of  consular  rank,  in  begging  his  pardon  for  some  ofi'ence  he 
had  given  him,  attempted  to  fall  at  his  feet,  he  started  from  him  in  such 
haste  that  he  stumbled  and  fell.  If  any  compliment  w-as  paid  him,  either 
in  conversation  or  a  set  speech,  he  would  not  scruple  to  interrupt  and  rep- 
rimand the  party,  and  alter  what  he  said.  Being  once  called  '  lord '  by 
some  person,  he  desired  that  he  might  no  more  be  affronted  in  that  man- 
ner. When  another,  to  excite  veneration,  called  his  occupations  '  sacred,' 
and  a  third  had  expressed  himself  thus,  '  By  your  authority  I  have 
waited  upon  the  Senate,'  he  obliged  them  to  change  their  phrases  ;  in  one 
of  them  adopting />c?"S2tasio?i,  instead  of  'authority,'  and  in  the  other  labo- 
rious'ms,te&.il  of  'sacred.'"  —  Sueton.  Tib.  27,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 
Compare  Tacitus,  An.  4,  G,  quoted  in  note  5. 

The  first  of  the  above  statements  is  corroborated  by  another  writer. 
"When  carried  anywhere  in  his  litter  he  did  not  permit  any  senator  or 
any  of  the  principal  knights  to  follow  as  attendants."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  11. 

1^  Although  Tiberius  enforced  existing  laws  against  dissipation,  "yet 
when  the  senators  wished  to  enact  a  penalty  against  profligate  livers,  he 
took  no  action  on  it,  adding  that  it  was  better  to  reform  them  in  some 
way  privately,  than  to  impose  a  public  punishment  upon  them."  —  Dio 
Cciss.  57,  13.     Compare  Ch.  V.  notes  48,  49,  55,  56. 

Additional  evidence  that  Tiberius  was  a  temperate  liver  may  be  found 
in  his  playful  criticism  (Tacitus,  An.  6,  46)  of  persons  "  who  after  their 


510  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

this  direction  has,  like  too  many  other  of  even  his  best  deeds, 
been  shamefully  misrepresented.^® 

Frugality  is  sometimes  connected  with  avarice ;  but  all 
writers  agree  that  Tiberius  had  no  taint  of  the  latter. ^'^     His 

tliirtietli  year  needed  advice  from  another  [that  is,  fi-om  a  physician]  as  to 
what  was  physically  beneficial  or  injurious  to  them"  ;  and  in  tlie  remark 
of  Suetonius  {Tlh.  68),  "He  enjoyed  excellent  health,  which  was  un- 
impaired   DTUING    ALMOST  HIS  WHOLE    TERM  OF  OFFICE,   although   after 

his  tliirtietli  year  he  managed  it  according  to  his  own  judgment,  without 
aid  or  counsel  of  physicians."  Plutarch  {De  Saniiate  Tuenda,  Opj).  6, 
p.  517,  ed.  Reiske;  7,  p.  407,  ed.  Hutten)  may  refer  to  some  variation  by 
Tiberius  of  his  habitual  remark  as  recorded  by  Tacitus,  though  the  spirit 
of  it  is  the  same. 

!•'  Tiberius  accepted  from  an  old  man,  Sestius  Gallus,  with  whom  he 
had  found  some  fault  in  the  Senate,  an  invitation  to  supper  (Sueton. 
Tib.  42)  on  condition  "that  he  should  change  nothing  from  his  ordi- 
nary custom,"  meaning,  doubtless,  that  he  should  add  nothing  to  the 
expense  or  trouble  of  his  entertainment.  Keport,  fabricated  peihaps  in 
a  later  age,  charged  Gallus,  correctly  or  falsely,  with  being  waited  on  by 
girls  in  a  state  of  nudity.  AVe  can  safely  assume,  either  that  the  charge 
was  fabricated  by  dissolute  idlers  as  a  jest  at  the  expense  of  Tiberius,  or, 
that  if  Gallus  had  ever  permitted  himself  so  gross  an  indecencj',  Tiberius 
was  ignorant  of  the  fact,  and  Gallus  sure  not  to  repeat  it  in  his  presence. 
Fearful  as  such  indecency  appears,  the  plates  of  Wilkinson's  Ancient 
EgyptMns  (Vol.  1,  pp.  142,  143,  Harper's  edit.)  show^  that  it  was  not  un- 
known, at  least  to  some  heathen  assemblages. 

1"  Tacitus  calls  him  {An.  3,  l^)  "sufficiently  firm,  as  I  have  often 
related,  against  [the  temptations  of]  money."  The  solitary  exception 
which  he  mentions  {An.  4,  ■_'(,)  is  imaginary.  A  public  plunderer  was 
prosecuted,  and  Tiberius  had  an  accurate  calculation  made  of  what  was 
due  from  him.  Tacitus,  copying  the  feelings  of  the  aristocracy,  deemed 
this  illiberal.  Elsewhere  he  says:  "The  estate  of  the  wealthy  Emilia 
Musa,  who  died  intestate,  and  which  was  claimed  for  the  prince's  jiurse, 
he  surrendered  to  Emilius  Lejiidus,  to  whose  family  she  .seemed  to  belong  ; 
as  also  to  Marcus  Servilius  the  inheritance  of  Patuleius,  a  rich  Roman 
knight,  though  part  of  it  had  been  bequeathed  to  himself ;  but  he  found 
Servilius  named  sole  heir  in  a  former  and  well-authenticated  will,  alleging 
that  the  nobUitatein  senatoiial  rank  of  each  needed  pecuniary  aid  [to  pre- 
vent forfeiture].  Nor  did  he  ever  accept  any  man's  inheritance,  but 
where  friendship  gave  liim  a  title  ;  the  wills  of  such  as  were  strangers  to 
him,  and  of  such  as,  from  pique  to  others,  had  a])pointed  the  prince 
their  heir,  he  utterly  rejected."  —  Tacitus,  An.  2,  4f-,  Bohn's  trans, 
altered. 

"  These  [his  bounties  to  other.?]  he  expended  from  his  lawful  revenues, 
for  he  never  killed  any  one  for  the  sake  of  riches  nor  yet  confiscated  his 
goods,  nor  did  he  in  any  instance  acquire  money  through  threats.  To 
JEmiliuH  Rectus,  who  on  one  occasion  sent  him  fi-om  Egypt,  of  which  he 
was  governor,  more  than  the  apjiointeil  tribute,  he  wrote  back,  '  I  wish 
you  to  shear,  not  .shave,  my  she(q)."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  10.  "In  addition 
to  other  viitues,  he  practised  rigid  abstinence  from  whnt  belonged  to 
others,  nevei-  accepting  legacies  left  him  by  such  as  had  relatives."  — 
Dio  Cass.  57,  17. 


§I.J 


HIS    CHARACTER.  511 


benevolence  seems  to  have  been  thoughtful/^  and  in  more 
than  one  mstance  copious;^'  nor  was  it  confined  to  pecuniary 
manifestations  alone,  but  showed  itself  in  ways  which  indi- 
cated an  active  j)ersonal  interest  in  the  welfare  of  others.^ 

^*  "About  this  time,  Pius  Aurelius  the  senator,  whose  house,  yielding 
to  the  pressure  of  the  public  roads  and  aqueducts,  had  fallen,  complained 
to  the  senate  and  ]irayed  relief.  Ojiposed  by  the  pretors  of  the  treasury, 
he  was  aided  by  Tiberius,  who  paid  him  the  price  of  his  house,  for  he  was 
fond  of  being  liberal  upon  fair  occasions.  .  .  .  Upon  Propertius  Celer, 
once  pretor,  but  now  desiring  leave  to  resign  the  dignity  of  senator  on 
the  score  of  poverty,  he  bestowed  a  thousand  great  sesterces,  upon  satis- 
factory information  that  his  necessities  were  derived  from  his  father. 
Others,  who  attempted  the  same  thing,  he  ordered  to  prove  their  allega- 
tions to  the  Senate."  —  Tacitus,  Av.  1,  7'),  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 

"As  he  relieved  the  honest  jioverty  of  the  virtuous,  so  he  degraded 
from  the  Senate  (or  suffered  to  quit  it  of  tlieir  own  accord)  Vibidius 
Varro,  Marius  Nepos,  Appius  Ajipianus,  Cornelius  Sylla,  and  Quintus 
Vitellius,  who  were  siiendtlirifts,  and  brought  themselves  to  poverty  by 
misconduct."  —  Tacitus,  Aii.  2,  4.«,  Bohn's  trans. 

"He  spent  veuy  little  on  himself,  very  much  on  thr  community, 
.  .  .  giving  much  aid  to  cities  and  piivate  individuals.  To  many  poor 
senators,  who  because  of  poverty  would  [could  ?]  not  attend  the  Senate, 
he  gave  [the  requisite]  wealth,  yet  not  indisciiminately  [compare  Tac. 
An.  1,  7.)],  .  .  .  and  whatever  he  gave  was  counted  to  them  before  his 
eyes.  Because  under  Augustus  the  paymasters  appropriated  to  them- 
selves large  portions  of  such  sums,  [Tibeiius]  was  rigidly  on  his  guard 
that  nothing  of  the  kind  should  happen  under  him."  —  Die  Cass.  57,  lo. 

To  Atilius  Buta  " confessing  his  poverty  after  an  immiiise  jiatriujony 
had  been  consumed,  Tiberius  remarked,  '  You  have  been  late  iu  waking 
up.'"  —  Seneca,  Epi.^/.  122,  ii.  The  phraseology  of  the  remaik  indi- 
cates anything  but  moral  indifference  to  waste. 

1^  Tiberius  "gave  largely  to  cities  and  individuals,  nor  was  he  will- 
ing TO  ACCEPT  [public]  honor  or  praise  because  of  his  gifts." — Die 
Cass.  57,  17.  "  The  Sardians  .  .  .  received  the  greatest  share  of  com- 
passion, for  Tilierius  promised  them  a  hundred  thousand  great  sesterces, 
and  remitted  all  their  contributions  to  the  public  treasury,  and  the 
prince's  privy  purse,  for  five  years." — Tacitus,  An.  2,  47,  Bohn's  trans, 
altered. 

"The  city  was  visited  with  a  fire  which  raged  with  unusual  violence, 
and  entirely  consumed  Mount  Cjelius  ;  .  .  .  the  emperor  dissipate<l  their 
muiTuurs  by  bestowing  on  each  sufferer  money  to  the  extent  of  his  dam- 
age :  hence  he  had  the  thanks  of  men  of  rank  in  the  Senate  ;  and  was 
rewarded  with  applause  by  the  populace,  for  that  without  any  views  of 
ambition,  or  the  importunities  of  friends,  he  had  of  his  own  free  will 
souoHT  OUT  THE  si'FFERERs,  THfJUGii  UNKNOWN  TO  iiiji,  and  relieved 
them  by  his  bounty."  —  Tacitus,  An.  4,  r,J,  Bohn's  trans. 

"The  same  year  the  city  suffered  grievously  from  a  fire;  ...  he  paid 
the  value  of  the  houses  and  tdusters  of  tenements  destroyed.  A  hundred 
thousand  great  sesterces  he  expended  in  this  bounty,  which  proved  the 
more  grateful  to  the  people,  as  he  was  ever  sparing  IN  His  own  private 
BUiLniNG."— Tacitus,  An.  6,  ir.,  Bohn's  trans. 

2*^  At  Rhodes  "one  morning,  in  settling  the  course  of  his  daily  excur- 


512  TIBERIUS,  [note   G. 

Moral  earnestness  is  sometimes,  tliougli  not  always,  asso- 
ciated with  attention  to  life's  com'tesies.  Tiberins  practised 
these  and  the  Icindly  offices  of  life  equally  in  his  retirement  at 
Rhodes  ^^  and  in  his  term  of  imperial  power.^-  The  fearful 
experiences,  both  public  and  private,  through  which  he  passed, 
would,  in  most  men,  have  chilled  them,  yet  he  retained  his 
social  kindliness  to  the  close  of  life.^  His  abhorrence  for 
brutalizing  games  ^*  did  not  prevent  interest  in  such  as  were 
innocent, ^^  or  else   in  the  enjoyment  of  those  who  frequented 

sion,  he  happened  to  say  that  he  shoukl  visit  all  the  sick  people  in  the 
town.  This  being  not  rightly  understood  by  those  about  him,  the  sick 
were  brought  into  a  small  portico,  and  ranged  in  order,  according  to 
their  several  distempers.  Being  extremely  embarrassed  by  this  unex- 
pected occurrence,  he  was  for  some  time  irresolute  how  he  should  act ; 
but  at  last  he  determined  to  go  round  tliem  all,  and  make  an  apology 
for  the  mistake  even  to  the  meanest  among  them,  and  such  as  were  en- 
tirely unknown  to  him."  —  Sueton.  Tib.  11,  Bohn's  trans. 

21  "He  led  entirely  a  private  life,  taking  his  walks  sometimes  about 
the  Gymnasia,  witliout  any  lictor,  or  other  attendant,  and  returning  tiie 
civilities  of  the  Greeks  with  almost  as  much  complaisance  as  if  he  had 
been  upon  a  level  with  them."  —  Sueton.  Tib.  11,  Bohn's  trans. 

•2.i  a  ]^p  -^yf^g  very  easy  of  access  and  ready  to  be  spoken  to.  .  .  .  When 
he  invited  them  [any  of  the  magistrates]  to  his  table,  he  received  them 
at  the  door  and  accompanied  them  thereto  on  bidding  them  good  by. 
.  .  .  He  mingled  with  his  associates  as  a  private  person.  In  their  law- 
suits he  acted  as  an  advocate  ;  after  their  sacrifices  [did  he  abstain  from 
these?]  he  attended  their  feasts  ;  when  they  were  sick  he  watched 
"WITH  [literally,  'over']  them,  unattended  by  any  guard  ;  and  for  one  of 
them  when  dead  he  delivered  tlie  funeral  address."  — Dio  Cass.  57,  11. 
The  gi'atuitous  labor  of  advocate,  according  to  Roman  views,  seems  to 
have  been  in  certain  cases  a  duty  not  to  be  neglected. 

23  "\Yiien  the  last  illness  of  Tiberius  was  coming  on,  and  some  friends 
were  supping  with  him,  Charicles,  the  physician,  rose  to  leave,  kissed  the 
hand  of  Tiberius  and  felt  his  pulse.  He  probably  wished  to  break  up  the 
company  so  as  not  to  over-fatigue  him.  Tiberius  asked  him  to  take  his 
place  again  and  continued  the  entertainment.  Nor,  when  it  was  over, 
"did  he  abstain  from  his  custom,  but  supporting  himself  on  the  couch, 
with  the  aid  of  a  lictor,  he  addressed  each  as  they  said  good-by."  — 
Sueton.  Tib.  72. 

2*  See  Oh.  V.  note  6. 

•25  »4^Yt  'fairs,'  or  whatever  afforded  a  holiday  to  the  multitude,  he 
would,  coming  on  the  preceding  evening  to  the  house  of  some  one  of  his 
tenants  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  gatliering,  spend  the  night  there,  so 
as  to  be  most  promptly  and  convenient!}'  accessible ;  and  \w  frequently 
watched  the  horse-races  from  the  window  of  some  one  of  his  freedmen." 
—  Dio  Cass.  57,  ll.  In  many  European  localities  gatherings  called  fairs, 
for  busiu(^ss  or  amusement,  or  both,  are  well  known.  In  Western  Penn- 
sylvania, during  its  earlier  settlement,  lamlholders  visited  neigliboring 
county  seats  during  the  (piarterh'  court-sessions.  This  enabled  even 
stayers  at  home  to  send  payments  and  transact  business  through  those 


§  I.]  HIS   CHARACTER.  513 

them,  and  among  his  minor  habits  one  indicates  perhaps  a 
limited  degree  of  plaj-fuluess.^^ 

Then  as  now  the  use  of  a  foreigTi  language  was,  in  many 
instances,  a  result  of  affectation. ^'^  Tiberius,  though  well  ac- 
quainted with  Greek,  showed  his  simplicity  of  character,  aside 
from  other  ways,  by  conversing  in  his  mother  tongue.^^ 

Moral  earnestness  seeks  approval  from  the  conscience  of 
others  rather  than  favor  from  tlieir  feelings ;  it  is  not  ambi- 
tious of  titles  -nor  prone  to  take  offence.  The  remark  of 
Tiberius  touching  dislike  which  he  had  incurred,  "  Let  them 
hate  if  only  they  approve,"  ^^  could  hardly  come  from  any  one 
save  a  conscientious  man  trying  to  do  I'ight.  His  dislike  of 
titles  is  one  among  evidences  of  an  unambitious  man,^*^  whilst 
several  incidents  show  his  absence  of  jealousy. ^^ 

that  came.  A  main  object  of  Tiberius  was,  doubtless,  to  facilitate  com- 
munication with  such  as  wished  to  see  him. 

^  In  South  Germany  the  author  found,  that,  if  some  one  in  the  stage- 
coach sneezed,  immediately  one  or  more  hats  would  be  lifted  with  the 
greeting,  "  Your  health."  He  has  been  told  by  travellers  in  Italy,  that 
the  same  custom  prevails  there.  It  is  two  thousand  years  old,  for  the 
elder  PHny  remarks  (Nat.  Hist.  28,  5,  2) :  "  Why  salutamus,  do  we  sa- 
lute [or  '  sa\-  health  to  ']  a  sneeze,  which  [custom]  they  say  that  Tiberiu.s, 
the  least  mirthful  certainly  of  men,  exacted  [when]  in  his  carriage." 

■•'^  "  Xo  woman  thinks  herself  beautiful  until  from  a  Tuscan  she  has 
been  metamorphosed  into  a  miniature  Greek.  ...  In  this  language 
they  manifest  fright:  in  it  they  express  joy,  anger,  weariness."  —  Juve- 
nal, Sat.  6,  18(5-180. 

28  See  Suetoniu.s,  Tib.  71,  and  Dio  Cassius,  57,  15.  Tiberius  must,  in 
the  Senate  at  least,  have  carried  this  to  a  noticeable  extent  ;  for  when  he 
had  occasion  to  use  the  word  monopoly,  he  apologized  for  using  one  bor- 
rowed from  a  foreign  language. 

29  Sueton.  Tib:  59. 

^•^  "  He  did  not  permit  himself  to  be  called  dominum,  master,  bj'  free- 
men, nor  emperor  [literally,  'commander'],  imperatorem,  except  by  the 
soldiers;  he  wholly  refused  the  a]ipellation,  'father  of  his  country.'  He 
did  not  add  [to  his  signature]  the  title  Augustus  [or  august]  (which  he 
never  permitted  to  be  voted  him),  but  tolerated  it  when  spoken  or 
written  [to  himself],  and  as  often  as  he  corresponded  with  certain  kings 
he  himself  added  it.  He  was  comiuonly  called  Caesar,  occasionally  Ger- 
manicus,  from  his  deeds  in  Germany,  and,  even  by  himself,  according  to 
old  custom.  Primate  (or  presiding  officer)  of  the  Senate.  He  said  tliat, 
'  I  am  master  of  my  slaves,  commander  of  the  soldiers,  but  primate  of  the 
others.'  And  prayed,  when  the  question  came  up,  that  he  might  live 
and  rule  [only]  so  long  as  beneficial  to  the  public.  Thus  in  all  things  he 
behaved  so  much  as  a  private  man,  that  he  would  not  permit  anything 
unusual  on  his  birthday."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  8.     Cp.  note  14. 

^^  "  Rufus  Helvius,  a  common  soldier,  acquired  the  glory  of  saving 
a  citizen,  and  was,  by  Apronius,  presented  with  the  spear  and  collar. 
Tiberius  added  the  civic  crown,  complaining  rather  than  offended  that 


514  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

Tiberius  had  in  early  life  proved  himself  an  able  and  hu- 
mane general.^^  During  his  reign  he  maintained  peace. ^^  This 
peacefulness  was  the  result  neither  of  thoughtless  sentiment 
nor  of  indolence,  as  is  evident  from  his  early  life  and  from  the 
energy  of  his  dealings  with  the  freebooter  Tacfarinas,  and 
with  robbers  and  rogues  generally.^  The  same  love  of  peace 
showed  itself  in  his  private  relations  and  in  his  dislike  of 
trifling  accusations.  At  Rhodes  he  interposed  as  peacemaker 
between  sophists  who  had  quarrelled;  and  his  only  exercise, 
during  eight  years'  stay  there,  of  his  authority  as  a  magistrate 
was  to  imprison  a  man  whose  fault-finding  must  have  tended 
to  start  the  quan-el  afresh.^^  A  wish  to  conciliate  furnishes 
the  most  probable  explanation  of  the  apple  oftered  to  Agrip- 
pina,  his   ambitious  daughter-in-law.^^     His  dislike  of  trifling 

Apronius  had  not  in  his  own  right  as  proconsul  granted  that  also.  .  .  . 
Tiberius  .  .  .  granted  to  Bhesus  that  he  shouhl  be  by  the  legions  saluted 
Impcrator  [connnander,  emperor].  .  .  .  Junia,  .  .  .  sister  of  M.  Brutus 
and  wife  of  C.  Cassiu.s,  .  .  .  having  honorably  distinguished  with  lega- 
cies almost  all  the  great  men  of  Kome,  she  omitted  Tiberius,  —  an  omis- 
sion which  drew  from  him  no  indications  of  offended  dignity,  nor  did  he 
hinder  her  panegyric  from  being  pronounced  from  the  rostra,  nor  her 
funeral  fioni  being  celebrated  with  all  the  other  customary  solemnities." 
—  Tacitus,  An.  3,  -2],  74,  7(i,  Bohn's  trans. 

32  See  Suetonius,  Tib.  9,  16-19. 

^  "Tiberius,  .  .  .  who  never  allowed  any  seed  of  war  to  smoulder  or 
to  raise  its  head  either  in  Greece  or  in  the  territory  of  the  barbarians, 
and  who  bestowed  peace  and  the  blessings  of  peace  up  to  the  end  of  his 
life  with  a  rich  and  most  bounteous  hand  and  mind  upon  the  whole 
empire  and  the  whole  world."  —  Philo,  Embassy,  21,  Bohn's  trans. 
"  The  matter  upon  which  I  am  occupied  is  .  .  .a  state  of  unuistukbed 
PEACE,  or  only  interrupted  in  a  Ihnited  degree  .  .   .  and  A  piunce  in- 

niFFEREXT   ABOTTT   EXTENDING   THE    BOUNDS  OF  THE  EMPIRE."  —  Taci- 

tus,  An.  4,  :;'2,  Bohn's  trans. 

3*  Tacitus,  An.  3,  73,  74. 

^  "One  instance  only  is  mentioned  in  which  he  appeared  to  exercise  his 
tribunitian  authority.  Being  a  constant  attendant  upon  the  schools  and 
lecture-rooms  of  the  professors  of  the  liberal  arts,  on  occasion  of  a  quai-iel 
among  the  wrangling  sophists  in  which  he  interposed  to  reconcile  them, 
some  person  took  the  liberty  to  abuse  him  as  an  intiiidcr  and  partial  in 
the  aflair.  Upon  this,  withdrawing  privately  home,  he  suddenly  returned 
attended  by  his  officers,  and  summoning  his  accuser  before  his  trilmnal 
by  a  public  crier,  ordered  him  to  be  taken  to  prison."  —  Sueton.  Tib.  11, 
Bohn's  trans. 

^  He  had,  in  answer  to  some  of  her  importunities,  taken  her  hand  and 
remarked,  "You  think,  my  child,  if  you  do  not  rule,  that  an  injury  is 
done  you."—  Sueton.  Tib.  .53.  Compare  Tacitus,  An.  4,  .".\  At  table, 
after  tliis  conversiition,  Agrippina  secnns  to  have  been  too  ill-humored  to 
eat.  Tiberius  commended  some  a])])l('s,  picked  one  out  and  handed  it  to 
her.     She  threw  it  to  one  of  the  servants.     Tiberius  remarked  to  his 


§^] 


HIS   CHAPvACTEPv.  515 


charges  may  have  been  due  partly  to  his  sense  of  justice  and 
partly  to  his  love  of  peace. ^' 

Moral  earnestness  looks  upon  power  as  a  trust.  Tiberius 
alone  among  all  the  emperors  laid  before  the  Senate,  when 
entering  upon  office,  a  detailed  statement  of  his  trust.^^  At 
the  close  of  life  his  anxiety  was  conscientious  as  to  its  trans- 
mission.** He  seems  to  have  preferred  certain,  rather  than 
severe,  punishments,*''  and  to  have  avoided  such  as  degrade 
men  or  diminish  self-respect.*^ 

mother  that  she  treated  it  as  if  poisoned.  (Tacitus,  An.  4,  .'54.)  The 
leading  facts  as  mentioned  by  Tacitus  are  here  narrated,  but  without  his 
interpretation  of  them. 

^^  On  one  occasion,  when  two  individuals  consecutively  had  been 
charged  with  disrespect  for  the  divinity  of  Augustus,  Tiberius  wrote  to 
the  consuls  "that  the  object  in  deifying  liis  father  was  not  to  facilitate 
the  destruction  of  citizens."  —  Tacitus,  An.  1,  IS.  On  another  occasion 
(Tac.  All.  1,  74)  a  persistent  attempt  was  made  in  the  Senate  to  fasten 
on  a  man  some  charge  of  conversation  disrespectful  to  Tiberius.  It  was 
skilfully  concluded  with  an  allegation  that  the  accused  had  cut  the  head 
from  a  statue  of  Augustus  and  substituted  a  head  of  Tiberius.  This,  it 
was  probably  supposed,  would  prevent  the  emperor  from  advocating  the 
man's  cause,  lest  he  should  thereby  seem  to  count  himself  above  Augus- 
tus. Tiberius  for  once  lost  patience,  and  said  that  he  also  in  this  case 
would  give  his  opinion  and  under  oath,  so  as  to  compel  a  like  course  on 
the  part  of  the  Senate.  Piso,  a  senator  of  independent  character,  restored 
the  emperor's  equanimity  by  calling  out  to  him,  "  In  what  place,  C'pesar, 
will  you  vote?  If  first,  I  shall  have  something  to  guide  me  ;  if  after  all 
others,  I  fear  that  I  might  incautiously  dissent  from  you."  This  sarcasm 
on  the  lack  of  manliness  in  the  Senate  recalled  Tiberius  apparently  to 
a  consciousness  that  the  accuser  was  appealing,  not  to  any  supposed  sen- 
sitiveness in  himself,  but  to  senatorial  servility.  He  quietly  "gave  his 
opinion  tidit  [sentcntiain]  that  the  defendant  should  be  acquitted  of 
[these]  charges  of  bad  citizenship."  Some  pecuniary  charges  were  re- 
ferred to  the  civil  tribunal. 

^  Tacitus,  An.  1,  il. 

"'  Tacitus  represents  in  his  Annals  (6,  40),  that  Tiberius,  in  his  last 
days,  weighed  carefully  the  qualifications,  as  a  successor,  of  his  grand- 
son, of  his  brother's  grandson  Caligula,  of  his  nephew  Claudius,  and 

THOUGHT   EVEN    OF    PERSONS   NOT  BELONGING  TO  HIS  OWN  FAMILY.       No 

one  fully  satisfied  him  and  he  did  not  make  a  choice.  Tacitus  adds 
(Ibid.):  "Favor  with  cotemporaries  was  to  him  of  Liiss  moment 

THAN    the    effort    FUR    HONOR    AMONG    POSTERITY."      TacitUS,  on    this 

point,  gives  his  testimony  without,  apparently,  appreciating  its  value. 

*^  No  reliable  record  exists  of  any  one  having  been  put  to  death  by  Ti- 
berius. "  He  gave  special  attention  to  preserving  the  peace  [i.  e.  the  pub- 
lic security]  against  bandits,  robbers,  and  mob  violence.  ...  He  rigidly 
repressed  popular  tumults  and  guarded  against  their  occurrence.  "When 
slaughter  had  been  caused  by  quarrel  in  a  theatre,  he  banished  the  leaders 
of  the  faction  and  the  players  who  were  its  cause,  nor  could  he  by  any 
prayers  of  the  people  be  forced  into  recalling  them."  —  Sueton.  Tib.  .37. 

*^  Corporal  punishments  were  unknown  in  his  time.    See  note  5. 


516  TiBERitrs.  [note  g. 

Justice  loves  openness  in  questions  of  public  administration. 
Tiberius  exerted  himself  to  secure  open  and  fair  hearing  as 
well  as  intelligent  decision.*^  His  selection  of  men  who  could, 
during  a  lifetime,  retain  office  satisfactorily  to  those  whom 
they  ruled,*^  attests  not  only  his  good  sense  and  scrupulous 
considei'ation  of  character,  but  also  his  moral  sense,  since  a 
deficiency  in  this  direction  would  have  precluded  any  such 
result.  Two  governors  of  his  appointment  have  been  sketched 
or  mentioned  by  monotheists.  One  of  them,  Flaccus,  is  por- 
trayed by  Philo,  his  unscrupulous  enemy.**  Of  another, 
Pilate,  we  have  some  view  in  Josephus  and  the  Gospels.*^ 

Although  the  surroundings  of  Tiberius,  and  many  circum- 
stances in  his  life,  must  have  tended  to  repress  affectionateness 
in  his  manner,  yet  two  or  three  recorded  instances  show  that 
it  not  only  dwelt  within,  but  that  it  occasionally  showed  itself. 


*2  "  He  never  transacted  business  alone  with  the  envoys  from  cities  or 
nations,  but  alwaj's  appointed  a  number  as  jjarticipants  in  the  investiga- 
tion, and  especially  those  who  had  once  been  their  governors."  —  Dio 
Cass.  57,  17. 

*^  "  This,  too,  was  part  of  the  policy  of  Tiberius,  to  continue  persons 
in  offices,  and  for  the  most  part  to  maintain  tlu-m  in  the  same  military 
authority  or  civil  employments  to  the  ends  of  their  lives."  —  Tacitus, 
An.  1,  8(1,  Bohn's  trans.  No  governor  appointed  by  Tiberius  was  ever, 
while  alive,  charged  with,  or  prosecuted  for,  malversation  in  ofi&ce. 

**  See  Ch.  V.  note  66. 

*^  Josephus  pictured  Pilate  with  no  friendly  pen,  yet  he  furnishes,  with 
his  usual  embellishments,  the  following  i'acts.  The  Koman  soldiers  came 
from  Ciesarea  to  Jerusalem  by  night,  —  possibly  to  diminish  cliances  of 
offence.  The  Jews  objected  to  the  images  on  their  standards  {Antiq.  18, 
3,  1).  Pilate,  after  finding  that  the  matter  might  cause  trouble,  sent, 
though  not  without  a  little  delay,  the  images  back  to  Ca?sarea.  He  found 
that  the  city  needed  water,  and  that  a  largo  sum  of  money  was  lying  in 
the  temple  useless,  or  probably  worse  than  useless,  since  unprincipled 
men  must  have  found  means  to  misuse  it  (compare  Ch.  II.  notes  33,  34). 
He  took  the  money,  made  an  aqueduct  {Antiq.  18,  3,  2),  and  n>piessed 
the  mob  whicli  followed.  Josephus  shows  him  to  have  been  energetic, 
utilitarian,  and  gifted  with  administrative  ])ower. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Gospels  we  find  that  before  this  Pilate  a  man  was 
brought  whom  tiie  leading  Jcnvs  were  determined  to  have  put  to  death. 
Pilate  tried  hard  to  save  him,  but  in  order  to  accomplish  it  mu.st  have 
incurred  risk  of  an  accusation  from  the  conservative  Jews,  who,  in  the 
existing  state  of  parties  at  Rome,  after  the  death  of  Sejanus,  could  have 
effected  his  ruin.  This  he  had  not,  appan^ntly,  nerve  to  meet.  But  the 
governor  who  could  not,  to  save  himself,  permit  the  execution  of  an  in- 
nocent peasant  —  for  such  Jesus  must  have  seemed  to  him  —  without 
repeated  effort  ui  Ids  behalf  (Matt.  27,  17-20;  ]\Iark,  15,  10-15  ;  Luke, 
23,  4,  ]4-2,j  ;  John,  18,  .'is  ;  19,  i-k;)  was  not  indilfcrent  to  justice.  He 
had  a  keen  conscience,  though  his  moral  strength  did  not  equal  the  de- 
mand ujion  it. 


§1.] 


HIS    CHAKACTEK.  517 


The  final  parting  from  his  first  wife,  and  the  eftbrts  to  jDre- 
vent  his  ever  seeing  her  again,  admit  no  explanation  unless 
he  were  affectionate.^®  His  joy  when  he  became  a  grand- 
father implies  fairly  the  same  quality  in  his  old  age,^'  and 
his  behavior  at  the  death  of  Augustus  is  most  naturally 
explained  by  the  same  characteristic.  None  but  an  affec- 
tionate person  would,  under  the  circumstances  mentioned 
in  note  36,  have  taken  the  hand  of  the  person  whom  he 
addressed. 

The  repugnance  of  Tiberius  for  any  manifestation  of  divine 

16  «»  Qui-  children  .  .  .  are  [judiciall_y]  in  our  own  power,  wliicli  right 
is  a  peculiarity  of  Koman  citizens,  for  there  are  almost  no  other  men  who 
have  such  2>ower  over  their  children  as  we  [Romans]."  —  Gaius,  Instit. 
1,  55  ;  edit.  Boecking,  p.  20.  By  Roman  law,  if  a  son,  or  adopted  son, 
married,  "  his  wile  came  into  the  power  of  his  father  and  not  into  the 
power  of  the  son.  The  son's  children  were  ...  in  the  power  of  their 
grandfather."  —  Smith,  Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  873,  col.  2.  In  March  of- 
B.  c.  12,  an  era  when  reactionary  ideas  and  measures  were  at  their  height, 
Julia,  the  emperor's  daughter,  lost  her  husband.  Augustus,  irpoaTroaird- 
tras  first  tearing  away  from  him  [Tiberius]  his  wife,  .  .  .  betrothed  Julia  to 
him  and  sent  him  against  the  Pannonians." — Dio  Cass.  54,  :'A.  An- 
other account  says  :  "  He  was  compelled  [by  whom  '(]  hurriedly  to  dismiss 
her  [Vipsania  Agrippina]  and  marry  Julia,  not  without  great  anguish  of 
mind,  as  he  loved  Agrippina's  society.  .  .  .  Even  after  the  divorce  he 
grieved  for  having  put  Agrippina  away,  and  in  the  only  instance  of  casual 
meeting  with  her,  gazed  after  her  with  eyes  so  earnest  and  full  of  tears, 
that  care  was  taken  [by  whom  ?]  to  prevent  her  ever  again  coming  into 
his  sight."  —  Siieton.  Tib.  7.  It  is  barely  possible  that  Augustus,  in 
this  matter,  acted  of  his  own  accord.  It  is  much  more  probable  that  his 
scheming,  plotting  wife — whom  her  great-grandson  styled  "Ulysses  in 
petticoats "  —  managed  the  matter,  and  abused,  in  his  name,  his  legal 
authority.  Even  Tiberius,  in  his  nsature  years,  could  not  prevent  her 
doing  in  his  name  (see  note  51)  things  offensive  to  him,  and  Augustus 
would  have  been  less  a  match  for  her.  Possibly  tlie  divorce  may  have 
been  effected  after,  instead  of  before,  the  departure  of  Tiberius. 

Tiberius  deferred,  for  two  years,  marrying  Julia.  Tliis  was  (Smith, 
Diet,  of  Antiq.  p.  741,  col.  2)  the  longest  legal  limit  for  a  betrothal. 
When  she  was  banished  at  a  later  date  by  her  father,  her  husband  was 
thoughtful  and  considerate.  He  asked  (Suetonius,  Tib.  11)  in  repeated 
letters,  that  any  presents  which  he  had  given  her  might  not  be  taken  away. 
The  yjreviously  divorced  wife  of  Tiberius  was  subject  to  legal  penalties 
(see  Ch.  VII.  note  77)  if  shedid  not  remarr}'  in  six  months.  She  married 
Asinius  Gallus  (mentioned  in  Ch.  VII.  note  102),  between  whom  and  her 
first  husband  friendship  seems  to  have  remained  unbroken.  He  is  men- 
tioned by  Dio  Cassius  (58,  ?,)  as  dining  with  Tiberius  in  A.  D.  30,  and  as 
receiving  from  him  a  guard  against  his  enemies. 

*'  "  Livia,  sister  of  Germanicus,  wife  of  Drusus,  gave  birth  to  twin 
boys,  which  .  .  .  caused  the  prince  so  much  joy,  that  he  could  not  re- 
frain from  boasting  (?)  to  the  Fathers,  that  to  no  Roman,  previously,  of 
the  same  rank,  had  twins  been  born."  —  Tacitus,  An.  2,  S4. 


518  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

honor  towards  mortals  ^^  may  have  been  due  to  his  moral  sense, 
but  is  so  strong  as  almost  to  indicate  monotheistic  leanings. 
It  was  certainly  not  due  to  any  regard  for  the  heathen  i"elig- 
ion.^^ 

§  II.    His  Retirement  to  Caprece. 

Angustus  had  acquired  the  island  of  Capreje  as  a  pleasant 
country  residence.^"  Tiberius  built  twelve  or  more  tasteful 
villas  upon  it,  and  retired  thither  in  a.  d.  26,  with  a  select 
number  of  friends,  men  of  culture  and  of  business  capacity. 
Several  reasons  may  have  prompted  him  to  this.  He  was 
almost  seventy,  and  may  have  needed  res])ite  from  the  fatigues 
of  city  life.  He  may  also  have  felt  that  if  he  lived  separately 
from  his  mother,  it  would  be  more  difficult  for  her  to  com- 


*^  "  No  sacred  place  was  ever  at  his  prompting,  or  otherwise,  set  apart 
for  him.  Neither  was  it  lawful  for  any  one  to  set  up  his  image  ;  for  from 
the  first  he  in  jilain  terms  forbade  either  a  city  or  individual  to  do  it.  He 
indeed  added  to  the  prohibition,  '  unless  I  shall  permit  it,'  but  subjoined 
verbally,  '  /  will  not  permit  it.'  "  —  Dio  Cass.  57, ':.  "  He  forbade  that 
temples  or  either  class  of  priests  should  be  decreed  him,  or  even  that  his 
statues  and  images  should  be  set  up  without  his  permission  ;  and  this  he 
gave  only  on  condition  that  thej^  should  not  be  placed  among  images  of 
the  gods,  but  among  household  ornaments."  —  Sueton.  lib.  26.  He 
vetoed  (Tacitus,  An.  5,  i)  any  deification  of  his  mother.  When  obse- 
quious persons  offered  sacrifice  to  him  and  Sejanus(Dio  Cass.  58,  .),  "he 
forbade  that  sacrifice  should  be  ottered  TO  ANY  HUMAN  BEING." — Dio 
Cass.  58,  -'.  Velleius  Paterculus,  while  defending  and  lauding  the 
bearing  of  Til)erius  towards  Augustus,  admits  (2,  l-2(i)  that  "he  has  not 
called  .  .  .  him  god."  The  temple  voted  by  the  Senate  to  Augustus 
received  no  dedication  from  Tiberius.  Whether  Caligula  (see  }>.  100) 
dedicated  it  as  merel}^  VRV^",  a  hero  monument  ( Dio  Cass.  59,  7)  may  be 
a  question  ;  as  also  whether  Dondtiau  parried  in  a  siuular  way  (Dio  Cass. 
67,  •>)  the  deification  of  his  brother. 

*3  TiheriuH  "  -was  7iegli(/entior,  rather  negligent  in  regard  to  the  gods 
and  religious  observances  because  (?)  addicted  to  astrology."  —  Sueton. 
Tib.  69.  Drusus  his  .son  was  blamed,  by  the  patrician  ]iarty  doubtless, 
for  neglecting  the  gods  of  Rome  and  the  initiatory  auspices  (see  Tac.  A71. 
3,  riu).  It  deserves  note,  also,  that  the  daughter  of  this  Drusus,  when 
e.x;pelled  from  Rome,  was  mourned  most  publicly  by  a  friend  who  was 
subsequently  charged  with  foreign  superstition,  that  is,  with  mono- 
theism.    See  pp.  241,  242. 

60  "Augustus,  having  taken  a  fancy  to  Capre;e,  .  .  .  took  possession 
of  it  as  part  of  the  imperial  domain,  giving  the  Neapolitans  in  exchange 
the  far  more  wealthy  island  of  iEnaria.  ...  He  appears  to  have  visited 
it  repeatedly.  .  .  .  Tilierius  .  .  .  erected  not  less  than  twelve  villas  in 
different  parts  of  the  island.  .  .  .  Excavations  in  modern  times  have 
brought  to  light  mosaic  ^lavements,  bas-reliefs,  cameos,  gems,  and  other 
relics  of  antiipiity."  —  Smith,  /He/,  of  (;,o,t.  1,  p.  509,  col.  2. 

According  to  the  New  Am.  CycIopaBdia  (art.  Capri),  the  island  "is 


§  II.]  HIS   EETIREJIENT   TO    CAPRE.E.  519 

promise  liim,  and  he  would  avoid  any  need  of  controlling  her.^^ 
Yet  further,  he  may  have  noticed  steps  of  the  aristocracy  to- 
wards a  rebellion  such  as  subsequently  broke  out,  and  lie  may 
have  felt  that,  by  living  at  some  distance  from  the  city,  he 
could  escape  the  need  of  measures  for  self-protection.  The 
published  statements  of  treasury  disbursements  ceased  from 
the  date  when  he  left  Rome  (Dio  Cass.  59,  9),  a  pretty  sure 
evidence  that  his  enemies  were  misapplying  these  disburse- 
ments. Among  the  companions  of  this  retirement  was  the 
eminent  jurist  Nerva,  against  whom  not  even  his  political 
enemies  have  a  word  to  allege  ;^"  Flaccus,  the  statesman  and 
man  of  cultui'e,  gifted  witii  uncommon  administrative  ability, 
and  whose  abode  at  Alexandria  was  the  seat  of  refinement ;  ^^ 

still  celebrated  for  tlie  beauty  of  its  climate,  ...  is  about  nine  miles  in 
circumference,"  and  is  frecjuented  by  quails,  "  vast  numbers  of  which  are 
caught  every  spring  and  autumn  on  their  passage  from  and  to  Afiica." 

Tlie  relics  in  these  villas,  as  well  as  passages  of  the  elder  Pliny,  convey 
the  impression  that  Tiberius  had  a  liking  for  the  line  arts.  Pliny  s])ecifies 
two  paintings  (a  Gallic  high-priest,  Nat.  Hist.  35,  36,  10  ;  and  a  bather 
using  the  strigil,  or  scra])er,  Nat.  Hist.  34,  19,  13)  as  having  especially 
commended  themselves  to  the  emperor. 

^1  "  She  was  greatly  putted  up  beyond  all  women  who  preceded  her. 
.  .  .  Except  that  she  did  not  venture  u])on  entering  the  Senate,  the 
camps,  or  the  assemblies,  she  endeavored  to  administer  all  things  as  if 
sole  ruler  ;  eventually  [Tiberius]  excluded  her  entirely  from  public  attairs, 
while  allowing  her  control  of  matters  at  home.  Then  as  she  proved,  even 
in  these  matters,  a  burden,  he  often  left  home  and  in  every  way  avoided 
her,  so  that  she  was  by  no  means  the  least  of  his  reasons  for  removing  to 
Caprea?."  —  Dio  Cass.  57,  1-2. 

This  mother  must  have  severely  tried  her  son's  sense  of  justice  and 
propriety.  At  one  time  a  lady,  unwilling  to  pay  her  debts,  took  refuge 
with  the  mother,  who  insisted  (Tac.  An.  2,  'm)  tJiat  Tiberius  should  have 
the  proceedings  against  her  stopped.  At  another  she  had  detei-mined 
(Dio  Cass.  57,  li)  to  bedicate  a  statue  to  Augustus  [as  a  god],  and  to 
make  a  great  feast  for  the  senators,  kniglits,  and  their  wives.  Tiberius 
obviated  the  impropriety  by  feasting  the  men  and  letting  her  take  the 
women.  He  required  as  a  preliminary  to  the  statue,  that  the  Senate 
should  vote  assent.  She  must,  then  or  subsequently,  have  carried  her 
point,  for,  much  to  his  disgust,  she  not  only  dedicated  a  statue  (Tac.  An. 
3,  04),  but  added  his  name  to  her  own  as  concerned  in  the  performance,  a 
total  misrepresentation  (see  note  48)  of  his  position  on  such  matters.  In 
much  of  this  she  was  doubtless  the  unconscious  tool  of  patricians. 

52  Nerva  was  a  law-jiuinl  of  the  Labeo  mentioned  on  pp.  171,  172,  and 
is  lauded  by  Tacitus  {An.  6,  -jo)  as  "acquainted  with  all  law,  human 
and  divine." 

^  See  Ch.  V.  notes  66,  82.  Flaccus  must  have  remained  among  the  inti- 
mate companions  of  Tiberius  until  sent  in  A.  d.  32  as  governor  to  Egypt, 
and,  if  Philo  caTi  be  trusted  {Against  Flu  cms,  3,  Bohn  s  trans.  Vol.  4, 
p.  63  ;  Paris  edit.  p.  663,  11.  29-31),  he,  when  Tiberius  died,  grieved  as 
for  a  personal  friend. 


520  TIBEFJUS.  [note   G. 

Macro,  combining  the  qualities  of  military  commander  with 
those  of  moralist  and  teacher  ;"  and  Curtius  Atticus,  a  Roman 
knight.  He  was  also  accompanied  by  Greek  and  Latin  schol- 
ars. ^^  His  respected  and  cherished  sister-in-law  Antonia  (with 
not  improbably  the  wives  of  some  among  the  officers)  con- 
ti'ibuted,  occasionally  at  least,  feminine  influence  to  this  select 
society.^® 

Tiberius  at  CaprejE  must  have  continued  his  previously  in- 
dustrious habits.  He  left  Memoirs,  part,  at  least,  of  which 
were  written  here,  for  they  included  matters  occurring  after 
he  left  Rome.  His  attention  to  the  political  and  financial 
interests  of  the  community  suffered  no  diminution.^'     In  his 

^*  Macro's  military  qualities  are  attested  not  merely  by  the  office  to 
which  the  disciplined  judgment  of  Tiberius  appointed  hiiu,  but  by  his 
prompt  supjjression  of  the  prearranged  patrician  rebellion  of  A.  D.  31. 
His  moral  qualities  are  portrayed  by  Philo,  who  at  least  had  means  of 
knowing,  for  Herod  Agrippa,  the  father-in-law  of  Philo's  niece,  lived  for 
a  time  at  Caprese,  associating  much  with  the  young  Caligula,  for  whose 
moral  training  Macro  seems  to  have  exerted  hiuiself.  According  to  Philo 
{Embassy,  7,  8),  Macro  tried  faithfully,  in  his  intercourse  with  Caligula, 
to  give  him  good  aims,  so  that  the  latter  on  meeting  him  would  say, 
'Here  is  .  .  .  the  pedagogue.' — Philo,  Paris  edit.  p.  GS7  ;  Bohn's  tians. 
4,  p.  111. 

°°  "  His  departure  was  with  a  small  number  of  companions  :  one  con- 
sular senator,  Cocceius  Nerva,  skilled  in  the  laws  ;  a  lioman  knight, 
Curtius  Atticus,  who,  as  well  as  Sejanus,  was  among  the  distinguished 
ones  ;  others  gifted  in  liberal  studies,  chiefly  Greeks,  by  whose  conversa- 
tion he  might  be  refreshed."  —  Tacitus,  An.  4,  59. 

^^  Antonia  was  a  daughter  of  IMarc  Antony  and  of  Octavia,  sister  to 
Augustus.  Smith's  Dictionary  (art.  Aiitonia,  6)  mentions  her  as  "cele- 
brated for  her  beauty,  virtue,  and  chastity."  Josephus  says  {Antiq.  18, 
6,  (i)  that  "she  was  in  all  resj)ects  honored  by  Tiberius,"  and  mentions 
her  (Antiq.  18,  6,  4  ;  cp.  c)  among  the  society  of  his  rctireuient.  She 
was  probably  a  monotheist,  for  not  only  was  her  intimate  I'ricnd  in  early 
days  a  Jewess,  but  her  business  agent  and  superintendent  of  her  estates 
in  Alexandria  was  the  Jewish  ethnarch  in  that  city,  brother  of  Philo. 
Further  :  though  her  husband  had  been  senatorial  in  politics,  yet  the 
Senate  for  some  reason  ignored  herself  until  a  grandson,  whom  they  hoped 
to  please,  sat  upon  the  throne.  Then  in  a  single  decree?  (Sueton.  Calig. 
15)  they,  for  the  .sake,  doubtless,  of  currying  favor,  voted  her  all  the 
honors  which  had  ever  been  confened  on  Livia.  This  was  overshooting 
the  mai'k,  since  it  made  her,  among  other  things.  Priestess  of  Augustus. 
The  relations  of  Antonia  to  her  dejieudents  are  illusti'ated  by  the  remark 
of  Caiuis,  her  freedwoman  (subsei]uently  the  cherished  wife  of  Vespasian), 
who,  when  told  to  forget  something,  replied,  "  It  is  useless,  mistress,  to 
give  me  such  a  direction,  for  these  and  all  other  things  which  you  tell 
me,  aie  so  fixed  in  my  mind,  that  it  is  impossible  to  forget  them."  —  Dio 
Cass.  66,  14. 

^^  "He  paid  exceeding  attention  that  they  [the  Senate] should  convene 


§11.] 


HIS   RETIREMENT   TO    CAPRE.E.  521 


benevolence,  which  continued  to  be  frequent  and  copious,*®  it 
is  noteworthy  that  the  younger  members  of  his  family  were 
called  upon  for  responsible  and  arduous  duty.^®  His  superin- 
tendence of  his  own  fiscal  matters  must  have  been  good,  for,  in 
spite  of  benevolence  and  absence  of  avarice,  he  left  a  large 
fortune.®"  The  rules  of  social  morality  which  he  had  laid 
down  in  public®^  were,  if  we  may  believe  Josephus,  carried  out 
with  equal  strictness  in  his  retirement.®-^  His  offices  of  kind- 
ness were  not  forgotten,  and  when  Nerva  was  on  his  death- 
bed the  friend  who  watched  by  his  side  was  Tiberius.®^     His 


as  often  as  duty  required,  and  that  they  should  neither  meet  later  than 
appointed,  nor  be  dismissed  earlier.  On  this  head  he  repeatedly  gave 
injunctions  to  the  consuls,  and  sometimes  directed  things  to  be  read  by 
them  [to  the  Senate]  which  he  was  accustomed  to  do  in  reference  to  other 
kinds  of  business,  as  if  he  could  not  write  directly  to  the  Senate.'  —  Dio 
Cass.  58,  -21,  under  A.  d.  33  ;  see  also  in  the  ne.xt  note  the  attention  of 
Tiberius  to  financial  matters. 

^  Tiberius  in  A.  D.  27  relieved  the  sufferers  by  a  fire  (Tacitus,  A71.  4, 
64),  and  in  A.  D.  33  relieved  a  financial  crisis  (Dio  Cass.  58,  2])  by  lend- 
ing without  interest.  Multitudes,  of  course,  needed  this  relief,  and  it 
could  be  safely  given  only  after  examination  of  their  assets.  In  A.  D.  36 
he  relieved  (Dio  Cass.  58,  -n;)  sufferers  by  inundation.  In  the  same  year 
(Tacitus,  An.  6,  45,  quoted  in  note  19)  he  relieved  the  sufferers  by  an  ex- 
tensive fire. 

^^  "  For  estimating  each  one's  loss,  the  four  husbands  of  Caesar's  grand- 
daughters, Cneius  Domitius,  Cassius  Longinus,  Marcus  Vinicius,  Rubel- 
lius  Blandus,  were  selected  ;  Publius  Petronius  being  added  by  nomina- 
tion of  the  consuls."  — Tacitus,  A)i.  6,  4.").  A  member  of  the  committee 
who  apportioned  relief  in  Pittsburgh,  after  the  great  fire  of  1845,  spoke  of 
it  to  me  as  among  the  most  arduous  of  undertakings.  Misrepresentation 
had  to  be  detected,  and  the  various  circumstances  affecting  valuation  to 
be  discerned  and  weighed. 

^  Sueton.  Calig.  37. 

^1  See  views  of  Tiberius  in  note  6. 

^2  According  to  Josephus  {Antiq.  18,  6,  4),  Herod  Agrippa,  subse- 
quently king,  came  to  visit  Tiberius  and  met  with  a  kindly  reception. 
Trustworthy  advice,  promptly  following,  said  that  his  object  was  to  avoid 
creditors  and  honest  debts.  Tiberius  "was  greatly  pained  on  perusing 
this  epistle,"  and  declined  further  intercourse  while  the  debts  were  un- 
paid, which  was  therefore  soon  effected.  Perhaps  Tiberius  had  yet  other 
advice  (see  p.  99)  concerning  Herod,  and  merely  tolerated  him  in  kind- 
ness to  Antonia. 

®^  The  natu7-e  of  Nerva's  death  renders  probable  that  he  suffered  from 
weakness  of  stomach,  as  did  his  grandson,  the  Emperor  Nerva,  and  per- 
haps, also,  that,  like  his  grandson,  he  may  have  been  more  distingui.shed 
by  gentle  goodness  than  by  rugged  strength.  An  attempted  enforce- 
ment of  usury  laws  had  produced,  in  A.  d.  33,  financial  disorder  and  dis- 
tress. Nerva,  in  the  midst  of  it,  was,  according  to  Dio  Cassius  (58,  ■i\), 
depressed  by  anticipations  of  fraud  and  disturbance.     If  he  could  be 


522  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

thoughtfuluess  in  the  administration  of  business  was  unabated  ; 
and  when,  in  a.  d.  32,  the  governor  of  Egypt  died,  he  tempo- 
rarily sent  one  of  his  freedmen  thither,®'*  thus  giving  himself 
leisure  to  select  a  successor,  Flaccus,  who  approved  himself  in 
the  office.®* 

The  residence  at  Caprere  was  diversified  by  occasional  visits 
elsewhere.®®  During  it  most  of  the  emperor's  grandchildren, 
adoptive  or  otherwise,  were  married.  One  of  them,  Caligula, 
chose  a  wife  whose  father  belonged  to  the  bitter  opponents  of 
Tiberius,  yet  the  latter  does  not  seem  to  have  made  any  ob- 
jections, nor  to  have  altered  his  relations  towards  Caligula 
because  of  it. 

Tacitus  and  Suetonius,  imsupported  by  Dio  Cassius,  tell  us 
that  Tiberius,  retiring  to  Caprea?  when  he  was  almost  three- 
score years  and  ten,  commenced  a  round  of  debauchery  so 
vile  that  a  modern  brothel  would  be  decent  in  comparison. 
The  story,  originated  in  a  poor  joke,®"  was  propagated  by  party 
malignity,  and  countenanced  by  prevalent  dissoluteness.  It 
would  deserve  no  notice,  save  for  the  wide  credence  which  it 
has  received. 

§  III.    Patrician  Revolt  of  A.  D.  31. 

At  the  death  of  Augustus  the  patricians  had  arranged 
measui'es,  which  proved  abortive,  to  prevent  the  accession  of 

depressed,  his  nervous  system  must  ah'eady  have  been  shocked  by  partisan 
murders  at  Eome.  Tiberius  sought  to  encourage  liini,  as  also  to  elicit  his 
views  on  the  course  to  be  pursued.  Tenderness  of  friendsliip,  one  might 
think,  should  escape  defamation,  but  the  traducers  of  Tiberius  represent 
the  death  of  Nerva  as  due  to  voluntary  starvation  caused  by  his  weariness 
of  the  emperor. 

^*  Dio  Cass.  58,  lo. 

65  See  Ch.  V.  note  QQ. 

®^  Suetonius  mentions  {Tih.  40)  a  visit  to  the  continent,  which  must 
have  been  in  A.  D.  27  ;  Tacitus  {An.  4,  74)  relates  a  visit  in  the  year  28 
to  Camjiania  ;  Dio  Cassius  mentions  (58,  M)  a  hospitality  towards  Gallus 
in  A.  D.  30,  which  seems  to  imply  proximity  to  tlie  city  ;  and  (58,  -n)  a 
residence  in  A.  D.  33  in  the  suburbs  of  Eome,  and  repented  visits  thither 
(58,  li)  about  the  close  of  the  same  year  ;  and  a  stay  (58,  -2')  at  Autium 
in  A.  D.  35  ;  Tacitus  s])eaks  {An.  6,  Sit)  of  Tiberius  as  near  Home  in  the 
last-mentioned  year  ;  Josephus  speaks  {Antiq.  18,  6,  c)  of  events  in  A.  D. 
36,  during  a  stay  in  the  neighborhood  of  Tusculum,  a  locality  twelve  or 
fifteen  miles  from  Rome,  where  wealthy  citizens  had  their  country  resi- 
dences, and  at  the  date  of  his  last  illness,  in  A.  D.  37,  Tiberius  was  at 
Misenum. 

^"^  The  name  of  the  island,  Caprere,  or  Capri,  led  some  one  to  call  him 
Caprinen.'-:,  wliiili  might  mean,  either  a  resident  in  Capri,  or,  by  a  play 
on  words,  a  grossly  dissolute  man. 


§  HI.] 


PATRICIAN   REVOLT   OF   A.  D.  31.  52[ 


Tiberius.  In  a.  d.  19,  20,  they  were  planning  rebellion,  with 
Germanicus  as  a  leader.  His  death  aided  in  breaking  up 
their  projects.  In  a.  d.  31  a  patrician  outbreak  took  place ; 
the  widow  of  Germanicus  being  either  its  nominal  head  or 
among  its  active  managers.  Some  prelude  to  it  occurred  in 
the  previous  year,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  appointment  of  a 
military  guard  to  protect  a  popular  leader.^^  The  outbreak 
was  prearranged,  for  one  or  more  vessels  put  to  sea  in  Greece  ; 
and  by  those  interested,  a  sou  of  Germanicus  was  alleged  to 
accompany,  or  head,  the  expedition,*^  which  had  for  its  object 
the  invasion  of  Syria  or  Egypt. 


^  "  On  the  same  day  that  [GaUus]  dined  with  Tiberius,  drinking  witli 
him  in  friendship,  he  was  condemned  by  a  decree  of  the  Senate  ;  so  that 
a  pretor  was  sent  to  bind  him  and  lead  him  to  punishment.  And  yet 
Tiberius  acting  thus(?)  .  .  .  exhorted  him  to  be  of  good  courage,  [direct- 
ing] that  he  be  guarded  without  bonds  until  he  [Tiberius]  himself  should 
come  to  the  city;  .  .  .  and  he  was  guarded  by  the  consuls  save  in  the 
consulship  of  Tiberius,  for  then  he  was  guarded  by  the  pretors. "  —  Dio 
Cass.  58,  ■■',. 

*'^  "  About  the  same  time  Greece  and  Asia  were  dismayed  by  a  rumor 
more  rife  than  lasting,  '  that  Drusus,  a  son  of  Germanicus,  had  been  seen 
in  the  Cyclades,  and  soon  afterwards  upon  the  continent.'  And  there  was 
indeed  a  youth  nearly  of  the  same  age,  to  whom  some  of  the  emperor's 
freedmen,  as  if  he  were  recognized  by  them,  attached  themselves,  with 
the  purpose  [?]  of  betraying  him.  The  unwary  were  allured  by  the  splen- 
dor of  the  name,  the  Greeks  being  prone  to  catch  at  anything  new  and 
marvellous  ;  so  much  so  that  they  imagined,  '  that,  escaped  from  custody 
and  proceeding  to  the  armies  of  his  father,  he  loould  invade  Syria  or 
Egypt.'  He  was  now  attended  by  a  crowd  of  young  men,  and  thronged 
with  eager  partisans,  elated  with  his  present  success  and  airy  hopes,  when 
the  story  reached  Poppseus  Sabinus.  He  was  at  that  juncture  engaged  in 
Macedonia,  and  likewise  had  charge  of  Greece  ;  to  obviate  the  mischief, 
whether  the  account  were  true  or  false,  lie  hastily  passed  the  bay  of 
Torone  and  that  of  Therme  ;  and  presently  reached  Eubrea,  an  island  of 
the  ^gean  Sea,  and  Pii'ieus,  on  the  coast  of  Attica ;  he  then  passed  along 
the  coast  of  Corinth,  and  the  straits  of  the  Isthmus  ;  and,  In^  another  sea, 
entered  Nicopolis,  a  Roman  colony.  There  at  length  he  learned,  that, 
being  shi-ewdly  questioned,  he  had  declared  himself  the  son  of  ilarcus 
Silanns  ;  and  that  many  of  his  followers  having  fallen  off,  he  had  em- 
barked, as  if  he  meant  to  sail  to  Italy.  Sabinus  sent  this  account  to 
Tiberius,  and  further  than  this  we  have  found  nothing  [?]  of  the  origin  or 
is.sue  of  that  affair. "— Tacitus,  An.  5,  lo,  Bohn's  trans.  The  young 
man,  according  to  Dio  Cassius  (58,  2.')),  was  sent  to  Tiberius.  Silanus, 
father  of  the  boy  here  mentioned,  was  one  of  the  high  aristocracy,  consul 
during  the  reactionary  proceedings  of  a.  d.  19.  His  lack  of  moral  sen- 
sibility was  shown  in  A.  D.  20,  by  his  public,  instead  of  jirivate,  thanks 
for  the  pemiitted  return  of  a  brother  who  had  disgraced  himself.  Tacitus 
when  writing  the  above  must  have  known  that  the  expedition  was  part 
of  a  prearranged  senatorial  rebellion. 


524  TIBERIUS.  [XOTE   G. 

The  consuls,  at  the  date  of  the  rebellion,  were  Trio  and 
Regulus.  The  former  was  an  unscrupulous  politician  with 
whom  Tiberius  had  at  one  time  declined  intercourse,  and  who 
had  afterwards  wished  to  make  himself  pi'omincnt,  in  the  year 
20,  as  a  prosecutor  of  the  empei'or's  friend  Piso.''°  Regulus 
does  not  seem  to  have  intended  rebellion,  but  to  have  been  en- 
trapped by  fraud  into  giving  it  unintentional  aidJ^  The  tiine 
selected  for  it  was  coincident  with  a  change  in  the  command 
of  the  pretorian  cohorts.  Sejanus  had  been  their  commandei', 
much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  ultra  aristocracy,  —  who  felt  galled 
at  seeing  one  of  an  inferior  order  acting  as  the  emperor's  right- 
hand  man,''^  —  and  of  Agrippina,  who  deemed  him  an  opponent 
of  her  aims.  Tiberius,  with  no  unfriendliness  towards  him,''' 
found  reasons  for  substituting  Macro,  a  man  on  kindly  terms 
with  Sejanus. 

Macro  reached  Rome  at  night,  communicated  his  authoriza- 
tion to  one  of  the  consuls,  Regulus,  and  to  Laco,  commander 

'0  See  p.  192. 

'^1  After  the  rebellion  was  crushed  "Trio  .  .  .  had  .indirectly  blamed 
Regulus  as  backward  in  crushing  the  agents  of  Sejanus.  He  .  .  .  not 
only  repelled  his  colleague,  but  brought  him  to  an  investigation  as  guilty 
of  conspiracy."  —  Tacitus,  An.  5,  ii. 

''■^  This  statement  scarcely  needs  proof,  but  abundant  evidence  in  its 
support  may  be  found  in  Velleius  Paterculus,  2,  lis.  That  author,  writing 
whilst  his  friend  Sejanus  was  in  power,  quotes  a  long  list  of  distinguished 
individuals,  not  of  patrician  ancestry,  who,  because  of  their  merits,  had 
been  elevated  to  high  position  at  Rome.  He  argues  that  Tiberius,  the 
Senate,  and  the  people  had  but  followed  ancient  precedent  in  elevating 
an  unusuallj'  competent  man.  The  argument  implies  a  class  who  decried 
Sejanus  because  of  his  origin  :  It  is  but  fair  to  give  this  friend's  opinion 
of  Sejanus:  "A  man  most  genial  [even]  in  gravity;  of  pristine  cheer- 
fulness ;  laborious  without  showing  it ;  totally  unassuming,  and  for  that 
reason  heaped  with  honors ;  always  measuring  himself  below  the  estimate 
of  others ;  tranquil  in  countenance  and  disposition  ;  of  sleepless  mental 
activity."  —  Vel.  Pater.  2,  127. 

'^^  Suetonius  {Tib.  61)  restates,  or  quotes  from  a  restatement  by 
some  one  else,  a  passage  from  the  Memoirs  of  Tiberius,  "that  he  had 
punished  [?]  Sejanus  because  he  had  found  him  tilled  with  animosity 
against  the  children  of  his  son  Germanicus."  ScJaiiiDii  sc  pimissc  qnod 
comjKrisset  fitrcre  advcrsus  liberos  Germanici  filii  siii.  This  passage  is 
not  quoted  verbally,  for  it  is  written  in  the  third  person.  Had  the 
Memoir  by  Tiberius  assumed  responsibility  for  the  proceedings  against 
Sejanus,  Tacitus  would  have  been  but  too  thankful  to  ipiote  what  would 
have  saved  him  nuich  inconclusive  reasoning.  The  ])assage,  in  its  most 
obvious  sense,  is  so  plainly  contradicted  by  other  evidence,  as  to  show 
that  the  meaning  of  Tiberius  has  been  perverted.  The  term  "  punished" 
has  been  substituted  for  removed  from  office,  or  for  some  equivalent  ex- 
pression.    Compare  note  97. 


§  III.]  PATRICIAN   REVOLT   OF   A.  D.    31.  525 

of  the  night  watch.  The  Senate  met  on  the  next  morning 
in  Apollo's  temple.  Macro  saw  and  held  a  conversation  with 
Sejanus,  who,  "  in  excellent  spirits  over  it,  hurried  into  the 
Senate  house."  He  then  replaced  the  day  watch  by  the  night 
one,  perhaps  because  of  trust  in  Laco ;  entered  the  temple 
and  gave  a  letter  of  Tiberius  to  the  consuls ;  charged  Laco  to 
watchfulness,  and  went  himself  to  the  camp. 

The  letter  of  Tiberius  was  opened.  "  It  was  long  and  not 
DIRECTED  AGAINST  Sejanus."  ''*  It  certainly  did  not  contem- 
plate his  death,  and  there  can  hardly  be  a  question  that  it 
contained  no  suggestion  or  desire  of  death  to  any  one.'^^  It 
ordered  a  guard  for  Sejanus,  as  a  protection,  doubtless,  against 
his  enemies.  During  its  perusal,  if  Dio's  narrative  be  correct, 
some  of  the  senators  —  perhaps  by  prearrangement  —  left  the 
side  of  Sejanus.  A  fictitious  tumult  was  created,  and  his 
more  timorous  friends  were  cowed.  No  distinct  motion  seems 
to  have  been  before  the  Senate.  The  proceedings  of  the  con- 
spirators can  be  judged  from  the  following  :  The  consul  "  Keg- 
ulus  [1]  did  not  ask  the  votes  of  all,  nor  [even]  of  a  single 

ONE    CONCERNING    PUTTING    HIM    [Sejaiius]    TO    DEATH,  but  being 

afraid  lest  some  one  should  oppose,  and  a  disturbance  be  made, 
—  since  (Sejanus)  had  many  relatives  and  friends,  —  having 
asked  some  one  and  received  assent,  that  he  should  be  bound, 
he  led  him  out  of  the  Senate  and  into  prison."'^®  Sejanus 
would,  perhaps,  have  been  safe  on  his  own  side  of  the  house, 
but  had  been  lui'ed  by  a  fraud  among  his  enemies.'^''  Laco, 
seeing  his  danger,  came  into  the  Senate  room,  took  place  by 
his  side  and  accompanied  him  to  prison,  but  may  not,  at  that 
stage  of  the  proceedings,  have  felt  warranted  in  entering  upon 
a  conflict  with  the  consul. 

'*  Dio  Cass.  58,  10. 

■^5  Tlie  conspirators,  and  writers  influenced  by  them,  have  done  their 
best  to  pervert  this  letter  into  an  apology  for  their  crimes.  According 
to  Dio  Cassius  (58,  lo)  it  treated  various  matters,  found  briefly  some 
fault  with  Sejanus  in  two  passages,  spoke  near  its  close  of  two  senators, 
friends  of  Sejanus,  as  deserving  punishment  [?],  and  directed  A  guard  to 

BE  PLACED  OVER  SeJANUS. 

T^  Dio  Cass.  58,  lO.  The  impression  conveyed  by  the  above,  that 
Eegulus  headed  the  action  against  Sejanus,  is  a  misrepresentation  which 
Dio  has  innocently  copied. 

"^  Regulus,  according  to  Dio  Cass.  (58,  lo),  called  two  or  three  times 
to  Sejanus  and  motioned  him  with  his  hand  to  come  to  him.  Sejnnus, 
inattentive  at  flrst,  asked  if  he  were  calling  to  him,  and  crossed  over,  on 
the  supposition,  apparently,  that  he  wished  to  hold  .some  conversation 
with  him.  If  this  be  true,  Regulus  was  used  by  the  conspirators  without 
knowing  their  object. 


526  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

Shortly  afterwards,  on  the  same  day,  another  meeting  of 
the  Senate  —  to  which  were  snmmoned  i)robably  only  the  con- 
spirators and  those  whom  they  conld  control  —  took  place  at 
the  temple  of  Concord  near  the  prison.  A  mob  had  been 
excited  against  Sejanus,  and  because  the  Senate  saw  this,  and 
"saw  not  one  of  the  [pretorian]  guards," '^  they  condemned 
him  to  death.  The  quoted  j^assage  is  evidence,  if  other  were 
wanting,  that  no  aid  was  expected  from  Macro.  Sejanus,  his 
children,''^  and  many  adherents  of  the  popular  party  were 
brutally  murdered. ®° 

The  mangled  body  of  Sejanus  was  knocked  about  during 
three  days  before  being  thrown  into  the  Tibei-.^^  How  long 
the  conspirators  held  sway  is  uncertain.  They  were  unques- 
tionably subdued  before  the  year  closed,  and  perhaps  within 
a  week  or  two.  Not  a  soldier  from  elsewhere  seems  to  have 
been  needed,  and  the  fleet  which  Tiberius  held  ready  ^^  was  not 
called  into  requisition.  The  conspirators  had  to  provide  for 
their  own  safety.     They  made  offers  to  Macro  and  Laco,  who 

''^  Dio  Cass.  58,  ii. 

'3  Dio  Cass.  58,  li.  The  little  daughter  of  Sejanus,  a  mere  chilil, 
had,  according  to  Tacitus  (^^/h.  5,  ;),  been  violated  before  execution,  — a 
fate  shared  by  others,  if  we  may  trust  Suetonius.  The  senatorial  faction, 
in  whose  service  this  was  done,  must,  wlien  on  their  delence,  have  tried 
to  coat  over  the  atrocity  with  religious  varnish.  "Because,  according  to 
traditional  custom,  it  was  impious  to  strangle  immature  girls."  —  Sue- 
ton.  Tib.  61.  "As  if  it  were  impious,  that  a  virgin  should  be  executed 
in  2^1'ison."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  11.  "]5ecause  it  was  deemed  unheard  of, 
that  a  virgin  should  be  subjected  to  trium viral  punishment."  ■ —  Taci- 
tus, Ah.  5,  !t.  The  triumviial  court  was  one  for  "sunnnary,"  even 
capital,  "  punishment  upon  slaves  and  persons  of  lower  rank." —  Smith, 
Diet,  of  Antiq.  1167,  1168.  Tacitus,  Suetonius,  and  Dio  quote  this 
wretched  attempt  at  an  apology,  as  if  they  believed  that  the  brute  of  an 
executioner  was  yirompted  b}'  reverence  for  religion.  Tacitus  assumes  to 
be  a  moralist.  His  indignation  elsewhere  {An.  1,  7(-,  quoted  on  p.  180) 
contrasts  unfavorably  with  its  absence  here. 

^'^  These  murders  expressly  violated  a  humane  enactment  which  Tibe- 
rius had  ten  years  previously  introduced,  that  "no  one  coiuleumed  by 
them  [the  Senate]  should  be  executed  within  ten  days,  nor  witliin  that 
time  should  the  decree  be  deposited  iu  the  treas\ny." — Dio  Cass.  57,  -ic. 
A  passage  of  Suetonius  {Tib.  55)  renders  ])ro1)a]ile  that  some  of  the  vic- 
tims were  from  a  council  of  twenty,  who  aided  Tiberius  in  governing  the 
city.  Compare  with  it  Caligula's  statement  to  the  Senate  iu  the  next 
section. 

''I  Dio  Cass.  58,  ll. 

'^'^  Tiberius  kept  his  fleet  ready  to  depart  at  a  moment's  notice  (Dio 
Cass.  58,  i:! ;  Sueton.  Tib.  65),  and  had  signals  and  watchers  arranged, 
probably  against  the  contingency  of  a  naval  effort  by  the  conspiratoi's,  or 
against  any  outside  disturbance. 


§  ni.]  PATKICIAN   KEVOLT   OF  A.  D.   31.  527 

refused  to  listen.*^  They  voted  honors  to  Tiberius.  He  for- 
bade their  consideration.^*  An  embassy  of  their  leading  men 
went  to  see  him.  They  found  no  admission.  The  consul 
Regulus  tried  it.     He  fared  no  better.^^ 

The  conspirators,  while  holding  control,  had,  as  a  political 
measure,  enacted  that  no  one  should  put  on  mourning  for 
Sejanus.^®  Tiberius  interfered.  "He  permitted  all  who  wished 
it  to  mourn  him,  forbidding  that  any  one  should  be  prevented 
from  doing  this  for  any  one  else,  which  [he  said]  had  been 
repeatedly  enacted  [meaning,  that  it  was  well-settled  law].  .  .  . 
Afterwards  on  account  of  Sejanus,  and  of  those  [lawlessly]^'' 
accused,  he  punished  a  great  many  and  [also]  those  charged 
with  having  violated  and  murdered  their  nearest  female  i-ela- 
tives."«« 

The  property  of  Sejanus  had  been  confiscated  and  put  into 
the  senatorial  treasury,  which  had  been  opened  by  Vitellius, 
its  prefect  (Tac.  An.  5,  8),  in  support  of  the  rebellion.  Jus- 
tice required  its  i-estoration  to  his  relatives.  "The  effects  of 
Sejanus  were  taken  out  of  the  senatorial  treasury,  that  they 
might  be  squeezed  into  that  of  Tiberius,  on  pretext  that  it 
should  make  restitution."^^ 

Not  a  few  of  the  popular  party  had  committed  suicide;  per- 
haps, that  they  might  escape  death  at  the  hands  of  malevolent 


^  "Not  long  afterwards  tliey  began  to  flatter  Macro  and  Laco.  Tliey 
offered  them  great  wealth  and  honors,  to  Laco  those  of  questor,  to  Macro 
those  of  pretor,  besides  allowing  the  latter  to  sit  among  them,  clothed  in 
senatorial  piiriile  during  the  votive  })ublic  games.  They  [Laco  and  Ma- 
cro] declined  the  offers."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  i.'. 

8*  Concerning  Tiberius  they  voted  that  "thenceforward  hp  should  he 
called  Father  of  his  Country  ;  that  his  liirthday  sliould  be  honoi'ed  with 
ten  horse-races  and  with  a  senatorial  feast.  He  again  [as  on  more  than 
one  previous  occasion,  Dio  Cass.  58,  ,-]  forbade  any  one  to  introduce 
such  a  motion."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  i.'.  What  must  he  have  thought  of 
them  ? 

^  Dio  Cass.  58,  K!.  In  this  connection  Dio  mentions  that  Regulus 
had  "always  been  studious  of  [pleasing]  Tiberius." 

^^  "Tliey  voted  .  .  .  that  no  one  should  put  on  mourning  for  him 
[Sejanus],  and  tliat  a  statite  of  Liberty  should  be  erected  in  the  Forum." 

—  Dio  Cass.  58,  u. 

^'  The  reading  "lawless"  is  found  in  two  manuscripts. 

^  Dio  Cass.  58,  ic.      Compare  note  100. 

^^  ''Bona  Scjiini  ahlata  cerario  ut  in  fisami  cocferentur,  fmiquam  re- 
fcrret."  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,  i.  At  this  act  of  simple  justice  Tacitus  shows 
his  chagrin.  "  The  Scipios  (!)  and  Silani  (!)  and  Cassii  (!)  with  great  as- 
severation advocated  these  things  in  nearly,  or  quite,  identical  language." 

—  Tacitus,  An.  6,  2.     Compare  note  69,  touching  the  Silani. 


528  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

opponents ;  perhaps,  that  they  might  under  the  Roman  law 
save  their  projierty  for  tlieir  children.^"  Their  confidence  in 
Tiberius  was  shown  by  devising  their  property  to  him.  He, 
contrary  to  his  custom,  assumed  the  legacies, ^^  and  effected 
doubtless,  so  f;xr  as  he  could,  their  return  to  the  proper  heirs.^^ 
The  same  confidence  in  Tiberius,  which  these  sufi'erers  showed 
by  their  wills,  was  manifested  by  others  in  their  remarks.®^ 

If  any  doubt  could  remain  that  Sejanus  and  his  friends 
were  murdered  by  conspirators  against  Tiberius,  we  shall  find 
in  the  next  section  an  explicit  statement  of  Caligula  to  the 
Senate,  that  they,  after  spoiling  Sejanus  by  their  flattery,  had 
put  him  to  death ;  and  Seneca  also  afiirms  that  the  Senate 
were  his  murderers.^* 

The  ambitious  Agrippina,  who  had  hoped  to  put  one  of  her 
sons  in  the  place  of  Tiberins,  —  and  jjerhaps  to  be  practically 
ruler,  —  wavered  between  plans  of  continuing  the  strnggle  and 
of  saving  herself.®^     Her  senatorial  co-conspirators  endeavored 

^  "Very  little  property  wa.s  confiscated  of  such  as  anticipated  execu- 
tion by  a  voluntary  death.  .  .  .  Nearly  all  the  effects  of  those  who  did 
not  die  in  this  manner  were  confiscated,  little  or  nothing  being  given 
to  their  accusers."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  1.%  ic.  The  probability  is,  that,  in 
murders  committed  by  a  conspiracy,  no  regular  prosecution  took  place, 
and,  therefore,  no  one  could  possibly  claim  a  "prosecutor's  share." 
"Not  only  knights  b\;t  senators,  not  onl5''men  but  women,  were  crowded 
into  the  prison.  Some  were  executed  there.  Others  were  thrown  from 
the  Capitol  by  the  tribunes  and  even  by  the  consuls.  The  bodies  of  all 
were  tossed  into  the  Forum,  and  .subsequently  cast  into  the  river."  — 
Dio  Cass.  58,  15. 

^1  "He  accepted  everything  left  to  him,  and  nearly  all  these  [compul- 
sory] suicides  left  their  property  to  him."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  ic. 

^^  In  the  year  33  also,  when  Sextus  Marius,  on  a  fictitious  charge  prob- 
ably, had  been  murdei'ed,  Tiberius  took  possession  of  his  projierty.  The 
narration  of  this  by  Tacitus  (A)i.  6,  tr)  illustrates  his  dealings  with 
history.  He  afiii'ms  two  things  :  (1.)  That  the  large  property  of  Marius 
was  taken  by  Tiberius,  Avhich  showed  tliat  Tiberius  had  compassed  HIS 
DEATH  for  tlie  sake  of  his  property  ;  (2.)  That  Tiberius  was  .so  incensed 
AT  THE  mukder  of  INIaiius  and  others,  that  he  disburdened  his  feelings 
by  slaughtering  indiscriminately  tliose  in  prison  accused  of  complicity 
AVITH  Se.ianus.     The  second  statement  contradicts  the  first. 

^^  "They  attributed  nothing  or  but  few  things  to  him  [Tiberins],  for 
they  said  tliat,  as  regardccl  most  of  these  transactions,  some  he  could  not 
have  kudwn,  and  otliers  he  had  been  compelled  to  do  against  his  will." 
—  Dio  Cass.  58,  \i. 

^*  "On  the  day  on  which  THE  Senate  led  him  out  [to  execution]  the 
populace  pulled  him  to  ])iece.s.  .  .  .  Nothing  remained  of  him  which  the 
executioner  could  drag  [with  h.is  hook]." — Seneca,  I)e  Tntiiquillitate, 
11,  9.      See  Caligula's  remark  in  note  114. 

^5   "Last  of  all  (Tiberius)  having  calumniated  (?)  her  with  desiring  at 


§  !"■] 


PATKICIAN   REVOLT   OF   A.  D.    31.  529 


to  ease  their  own  shoulders  by  unanimous  testimony  against 
her.^®  She  was  legally  amenable  to  Tiberius,  as  the  adoptive 
father  of  her  liusband,  and  was  by  him  banished  to  an  island, 
where,  two  years  subsequently,  she  died,  on  the  anniversary  of 
her  victim's  death. ^'' 

Among  the  severe  trials  of  Tiberius,  in  connection  with  this 
revolt,  was  the  fate  of  Livilla,  or  Livia,  Junior,  his  daughter- 
in-law.  Her  husband  Drusus,  and  subsequently  to  his  death, 
her  son,  had  been  hoped  for  by  the  popular  party  as  their 
future  prince.^*  This  made  her  an  object  of  animosity  to  the 
patrician  faction.  During  the  rebellion  her  statues  were 
thrown  down  and  violent  decrees  enacted  against  her.®^     She 

one  moment  to  betake  herself  to  the  statue  of  Augustus,  at  auothei-  to 
the  armies,  banished  her  to  [the  island  of]  Pandateria."  —  Sueton.  Tib. 
53.  Tacitus,  as  usual,  copies  or  adds  to  patrician  misstatements.  He 
says:  "Persons  were  provided  [by  Tiberius]  who  slioukl  warn  [Agrip- 
pina  and  her  son  Nero]  to  escape  to  the  armies  of  Germany  [at  one  time 
commanded  by  her  husband]  or  in  the  most  public  manner  to  embrace 
the  statue  of  the  divine  Augustus  in  the  Forum  and  call  on  the  people 
and  Senate  for  aid  !  And  these  projects,  spurned,  were  charged  as  if 
planned  by  them."  —  Tacitus,  An.  4,  07.  Tacitus  connects  this  with 
events  of  A.  D.  27.  It  has  no  appositeness  thereto,  and  was  probably 
displaced  by  himself  or  some  earlier  writer,  for  the  sake  of  obscuring 
history. 

^^  Caligula  —  in  response  probably  to  incessant  senatorial  invective 
against  Sejanus — "inveighed  often  against  all  senators,  equally,  as 
CLIENTS  OF  Skjanus,  and  dclatorcs,  prosecutors  of  his  mother  and  broth- 
ers, .  .  .  defending  the  severe  measures  of  Tiberius  as  necessary,  since 
credence  had  to  be  given  to  such  a  multitude  of  accusers."  —  Sueton. 
Cali(j.  30.     Caligula  knew  how  to  use  sarcasm. 

**  "Cffisar  added,  that  'she  died  on  the  same  day  of  the  year  on  which 
Sejanus  had  been  punished  [?]  two  years  previously,  and  that  the  fact 
deserved  recollection.'  ...  It  was  decreetl  [by  the  Senate]  that  ibrever 
on  the  18th  of  October  (the  day  when  both  had  died)  an  ottering  should 
be  made  to  Ju])iter."  —  Tacitus,  y/«.  6, -iri.  The  parenthetical  remark 
in  its  present  shape  was  no  jiart  of  the  decree.  The  additional  remark 
of  Tibeiius  that  Agrippina  had  not  perished  by  a  public  execution,  is 
misrepresented  by  Tacitus  as  a  boast.  On  the  word  punished,  cp.  note 
73. 

^  "When  Drusus,  her  hiisband,  died,  the  popular  party  must  have 
endeavored  (Tacitus,  An.  4,  o)  to  make  his  funeral  outvie  the  one  ])revi- 
ously  gotten  up  by  the  patricians  for  Germanicus. 

^  "  At  Rome,  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  [a.  d.  32],  as  if  the  dis- 
graceful doings  (?)  of  Livia  were  but  lately  become  known,  and  had  not 
already  [how?]  been  sufficiently  punished,  savage  decrees  were  also  en- 
acted against  her  statues  and  memory."  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,  -\  The  cir- 
cumstances here  mentioned  occurred  probably  in  the  latter  ]iart  of  31, 
while  the  rebellion  held  sway.  Its  location  in  a.  d.  32  may  be  one  of 
those  misplacements  by  which  the  patrician  party  endeavored  to  obscure 
23  11  u 


530  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

was  among  the  women  violated.  Circumstantial  evidence  ren- 
ders it  not  improbable  tiiat  she  was  also  murdered  by  a  repro- 
bate nephew  or  nephews. -^"^  When  her  violators  were  brought 
to  justice,  the  senatorial  faction  called  it  punishment  for  adul- 
tery.'°i 

A  conspiracy  and  state  emergency  such  as  we  have  men- 
tioned would  to  many  a  ruler  have  suggested  arbitrary  meas- 
ures. No  such  charge  against  Tiberius  comes  to  us  even  from 
his  enemies.  Not  a  military  execution  is  mentioned ;  no 
arbitrary  expurgation  of  the  Senate,  such  as  Augustus  exe- 
cuted in  favor  of  the  reactionary  aristocracy.  Tiberius  seems 
to  have  proceeded  patiently  and  persistently  in  collecting  evi- 
dence and  in  laying  it  before  the  established  tribunal,  so  that 
perpetrators  of  outrage  and  murder  should  receive  their  due 
reward. 

The  senatorial  faction  fought  stoutly,  and  more  than  three 
years  were  needed   before  Trio   could  be  bi'ought  to  justice, 


history.  If  the  decrees  were  early  in  the  year  32,  they  must  have  been 
an  effort  of  the  conspirators,  in  their  fright,  to  diveit  indignation  from 
themselves.  The  enactment  of  decrees  against  Li  villa's  mkmory  implies 
apparently  that  she  was  already  dead,  which  corroborates  the  supposition 
that  she  had  been  murdered. 

100  Agrippina  had,  when  her  husband  died,  three  surviving  sons, 
Nero,  Drusus,  and  Cains  or  Caligula.  The  last  mentioned  resided  at  first 
with  his  great-grandmother,  Livia,  then  with  his  grandmother,  Antonia, 
and  then  with  his  grand-uncle,  Tiberius.  The  other  two  are  represented 
by  their  aged  relative,  the  emperor  (Tacitus,  An.  5, :! ;  6,  2'),  as  addicted 
to  vice.  If  the  action  of  Tiberius  already  mentioned  (see  p.  527),  against 
such  as  had  violated  and  murdered  their  nearest  female  relatives,  were 
without  intervention  of  courts,  it  must  have  been  against  some  member, 
or  members,  of  his  family,  subject,  as  such,  to  his  personal  jurisdiction. 
If  .so,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  reference  is  to  Nero  or  Drusus, 
or  to  both.  Nero  was  banished  (Sueton.  Tib.  54  ;  compare  Calig.  15) 
to  the  island  of  Pontia.  Drusus  (Ibid.)  was  kept  prisoner  in  the  Capitol 
until  his  death.     Compare  note  133. 

^°^  In  A.  D.  34,  Mamercus  Scaurns,  with  whom  Seneca  (Dc  Benefic.  4, 
31,  2,  3)  disgusts  his  readers,  and  whom  Tacitus  calls  "distinguished 
by  noble  birth  and  in  pleading  causes,  but  of  shameful  life,"  was  trii'd 
(Tac.  An.  6,  v.')  for  "ailnltcry  with  Livia  and  magical  rites."  Accord- 
ing to  Dio  Cassius,  58,  lA,  the  sole  charge  was  "having  committed 
adultery  with  Livia;  for  many  others  were  punished  on  her  account." 
The  nature  of  his  offence  may  be  judged  from  the  following  comment 
of  Tiberius  on  an  insulting  and  ddiant  drama  by  the  cul]irit  :  "/  n-ill 
make,  him.  an  Ajnx"  (Dio  Cass.  58,  v).  Ajnx  is  said  to  have  violated 
Cassandra,  the  Priestess  of  Minerva  (Smith,  J)ict.  of  Uioij.  1,  p.  88,  col. 
1),  and  to  have  ])eiished  in  conseriuence.  Defiant  language  (Ibid.  p.  87, 
col.  2)  did  not  save  him. 


§  IV.]  SOCLiL   KESULTS   OF   THE   REBELLION.  531 

though  he  had  committed  some  of  the  murders  with  his  owu 
hand.^°^  Eveu  Scaurus  escaped  conviction  for  nearly  the  same 
length  of  time. 

§  IV.    Social  Results  of  the  Rebellion. 

The  civil  polity  of  Rome  recognized  no  public  prosecutor 
whose  duty  it  was  to  proceed  against  criminals.  The  popular 
party  had  no  legislative  body  elected  by  itself  througia  whom 
it  could  legislate  in  behalf  of  justice.  The  law-making  power 
was  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  present  criminals,  that  is,  of 
the  Senate,  which  moreover  exercised,  to  some  extent,  judicial 
functions.  Had  Tiberius  under  these  circumstances  treated 
revolution  as  calling  for  extraordinary,  even  non-legalized 
action  on  his  part,  had  he  banished,  even  if  he  did  not  execute, 
the  more  active  criminals,  public  opinion  would  have  sustained 
him,  and  the  community  would  have  been  spared  many  evils. 
He  was  scrupulous,  however,  not  to  overstep  his  established 
authorit}',  and  the  laws  were  allowed  ordinary  course. ^°^  That 
he  did  not  seize  the  opportunity  for  reforming  the  government 
may  have  been  due  to  his  advanced  age,  or  to  jjromises  exacted 
by  his  step-father,  or  to  absence  of  the  originality  requisite 
for  political  reconstruction,  though  he  was  otherwise  highly 
gifted  with  administrative  ability. 

Every  individual  whose  relatives  had  been  murdered  could 
bring  action  against  the  murderers.  These  murderers  were 
politically  and  financially  powerful.  They  brought  or  insti- 
gated counter-prosecutions  to    intimidate  their  opponents.-"'* 

102  See  note  90. 

103  Tiberius  "  sent  in  to  it  [the  Senate]  not  only  the  books  [articles  of 
accusation]  placed  in  his  hands  by  'prosecutors,'  but  also  the  evidence 
under  torture  superintended  by  Macro,  so  that  nothing  was  left  to  tliem 
[the  senators]  save  [acquittal  or]  condemnation."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  '21, 
compare  24.  Tacitus  alludes  to  but  one  instance  of  this,  which  he  places 
in  the  year  37.  Three  senators  of  rank  were  on  trial.  "  Commentaries 
[by  whom  ?]  sent  to  the  Senate  said  that  Macro  had  presided  at  the  ex- 
amination of  witnesses,  and  the  torture  of  the  slaves.  Absence  of  any 
letters  from  the  emperor  against  them  created  suspicion."  — Tacitus,  An. 
6,47.  In  the  extract  from  Dio  the  bracketed  word  "acquittal"  must 
not  be  attributed  to  him,  thoiigli  necessary  to  a  fair  understanding  of  the 
matter.  In  both  of  these  extracts  the  accusers  must  have  been  others 
than  Tiberius.  He  appears  merely  as  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate, 
through  whom  charges  and  evidence  were  handed  in.  Slave  evidence  in 
such  cases  was  only  valid  if  taken  under  torture.  Macro's  presence  at 
the  examination  may  have  been  needed  to  prevent  fraud  or  to  mitigate 
inhumanity. 

^'^  One  man  gave  as  a  reason  for  bringing  a  prosecution  (Tacitus,  An. 


532  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

They  could,  no  doubt,  hire  Delatores,  prosecutors  on  shares, 
■who  for  a  price  paid,  and  in  hope  of  half  the  defendant's  prop- 
erty, would  undertake  the  invention  of  crime  and  evidence. 
Seneca  depicts  the  state  of  matters, ^°^  and  elsewhere  places  in 
strong  contrast  tlie  earlier  years  of  Tiberius. ^"^ 

The  proceedings  against  Gallio  illustrate  the  condition  of 
things.  He  had  moved  in  the  Senate  a  reward  for  the  pre- 
torian  soldiers  because  of  their  fidelity  against  the  rel)ellion. 
Tiberius,  who  saw  that  the  motion  was  a  well-intentioned,  even 
if  foolish  mistake,  wrote  that  the  soldiers  were  under  orders  of 
their  commander  (Impe/'atoris,  emperor),  and  must  look  to  him, 
not  to  the  Senate,  for  reward.  The  Senate,  eager  to  indulge 
its  feeling  against  Gallio,  banished  him.  Tiberius  —  against! 
whom  the  alleged  fault  had  been  committed  —  recalled  him 
and  gave  him  a  guard  for  his  protection. ■'°^ 

The  chai'ges  against  Cotta  Messalinus  are  another  illustra- 
tion of  the  prevailing  tendency. ■'"^     Their  tenor  implies  that 

6,  is)  that  he  wished  to  pany  his  brother's  daiif^er.  "  Under  Tiberius 
the  accusers  of  others  acquired  much  wcaUh  from  their  property  and 
from  THE  SENATORIAL  TREASUKY,  and  obtained  certain  honors."  - — Dio 
Cass.  58,  M. 

1U5  I'  Under  Tibei'ius  Cfesar  tliere  was /j-cg'Hefis  et  pccnc  puhlica,  a  com- 
mon and  almost  epidemic  insanity  for  accusation,  whieli,  worse  than  any 
civil  war,  brought  destruction  to  Roman  citizens.  The  utterance  of  the 
drunken,  the  simp/icifas,  light-heartedness  of  the  jesting,  were  seized 
upon.     Nothing  was  safe."  —  Seneca,  Dc  Bniffic.  3,  26,  1. 

M6  Seneca  tells  Nero  on  liis  accession,  "  No  man  was  ever  so  dear  to 
another  as  you  to  the  whole  Roman  peojde.  .  .  .  No  one  now  mentions 
the  divine  Augustus  or  the  earlier  years  of  Tiberius  Caesar." — De  de- 
mentia, 1,  1,  .%  (>. 

This  testimony  comes  from  one  wlio  had  no  disjwsition  to  overpraise 
Tiberius.  The  guarded  benevolence  of  the  lattei-  did  not  suit  Seneca's 
views  of  conferring  favors.  (Seneca,  Dc  Benrfic.  2,  7,  S.)  That  writer 
elsewhere  {Dc  Bcncfic.  5,  2.5,  '2)  attributes  to  Tiberius  a  lack  of  sociabil- 
ity caused  by  pride,  which  was  more  probably  flue  to  ])ractical  reasons. 
Seneca  moved  in  aristocratic  society,  and  could  not  wholly  escajie  its  in- 
fluence. He  tells  us  {Epnsf..  83,  l",  u)  that  Cossus,  whom  Tilierius.on 
quitting  Rome  liad  left  in  charge  of  the  city,  was  a  thoughtful,  discreet 
man,  virmn  (irarem,  modcrafum,  esi)ecially  ti'usted  above  other  ministers 
by  Tiberius  with  ]nivate  matters,  and  thnt  he  never  divulged  a  public  or 
private  secret.  Yet  in  connection  with  this,  Seneca  tells  us  that  lie  was 
an-habitual  drunkard  ;  a  fiction,  ])robably,  of  the  aristocracy. 

!"■'  Tacitus,  Jn.  6,  :!  ;  Dio  Cass.  58, 18. 

1""  Only  thien  charges  are  adduced  by  Tacitus  :  (1)  that  Cotta  had 
spoken  of  Caligula's  manhood  as  yet  untried  (the  Latin  admits  an  indecent 
perversion)  ;  (2)  that  a  birthday  feast  for  Augusta  (mother  of  Tiberius) 
had  by  him  been  called  a  funeral  entertainment;  and  (."5)  that  in  a  pe- 
cuniary suit  with  Lepidus  and  Arruntius,  he  had  said,  "The  Senate  will 


§  IV. J  SOCIAL   KESULTS   OF   THE   EEBELLIOX.  533 

they  came  from  the  dominant  senatorial  faction.  Tiberius 
replied,  that  neither  language  maliciously  perverted,  nor  the 
freedom  of  convivial  conversation,  ought  to  be  made  a  ground 
of  accusation.  He  prefixed  to  this  a  statement  that  it  was  a 
torment  to  know,  "  what  I  ought  to  write  you,  how  I  shall 
phrase  it,  and  what  I  had  better  omit,"  and  added  that  his 
torments  were  daily  ones.^°^ 

He  felt  at  times  that  the  earth  needed  a  renovation  as 
with  fire.^^*^  Conscientious  anxiety  and  inability  to  provide  a 
safeguard  against  such  evils  after  his  death,  made  him  in  some 
moment  of  perplexity  treat  Priam  as  relatively  happy  in  his 
freedom  from  kindred  anxiety. ■'^^  Financial  chaos  was  by  an 
act  of  the  patricians  superadded  to  other  troubles  which  he 
needed  to  remedy,^^^  yet  he  labored  on,  and  the  last  moments 
of  his  earthly  existence  were  apparently  devoted  to  thoughtful 
provision  for  the  future.-'^* 

pi'otect  them,  my  little  Tiberius  me."  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,5.  For  these 
charges,  with  which  Tacitus  seeuis  to  sympatiiize,  the  senatorial  faction 
had,  according  to  that  writer,  been  on  the  watch. 

1°^  Tiberius,  as  "primate"  of  the  Senate,  had  to  give  assent  before  a 
prosecution  could  be  lkgally  commenced.  To  refuse  this  for  all  prosecu- 
tions which  he  disajiproved,  would  (iractically  have  made  him  the  exclusive 
judge  of  such  cases,  —  an  arbitrary  power  the  assumption  of  which  (see 
Note  C,  foot-note  10)  he  probably  deemed  inappropriate.  On  the  other 
hand,  assent  yielded  might  mean  pemmiary  ruin,  or  death,  to  an  innocent 
man.  Even  an  unguarded  word,  addressed  to  the  Senate,  might  be  per- 
verted to  some  one's  ruin.  The  anxiety  and  suffering  of  Tiberius  in  such 
a  position  is  by  Tacitus  (An.  6,  'i)  attributed  to  his  guilty  conscience,  — a 
palpable  and  gross  misrepresentation,  though  frequently  accepted  as  truth- 
ful, even  at  the  present  day. 

11°  "He  is  said  to  have  often  repeated  this  old  [line  of  Greek  poetry]: 
*When  I  am  dead,  let  the  earth  Maze.'  "  — Dio  Cass.  58,  i-',.  Comj)are 
Seneca's  views  in  note  50,  on  p.  57.  The  line  was  probably  well  known, 
for  Cicero  (De  Fiaibus,  3,  r.i)  treats  it  as  familiar,  Seneca  {De  Cleinentia, 
2,  2,  ■-')  quotes  it,  and  Suetonius  {N'ero,  38)  mentions  its  citation  in  Nero's 
presence. 

Ill  Dio  Cassius,  58, 2:!.    Compare  the  solicitude  of  Tiberius  in  note  39. 

11'^  The  Senate  had  enacted  (Tacitus,  An.  6,  17)  that  by  every  man  two 
thirds  of  his  moneys  at  interest  sliouhl  be  placed  on  lands  in  Italy.  Pa- 
tricians were  the  chief  land-owners,  and  the  object  therefore  must  have 
been  to  favor  themselves.  The  enactment  necessitated  a  simultaneous 
calling  in  of  all  loans.  This  threatened  widespread  financial  ruin,  which 
Tiberius  parried  (see  note  58)  by  lending  a  large  amount  without  intei^st. 

11*  "Seneca  writes:  'That  finding  himself  dying,  he  took  his  signet 
ring  off  his  finger,  and  held  it  awhile,  as  if  he  would  deliver  it  to  some- 
body ;  but  put  it  again  upon  his  finger,  and  lay  for  some  time,  with  his 
left  hand  clinched,  and  without  stirring  ;  when  suddenly  summoning 
his  attendants,  and  no  one  answering  the  call,  he  rose  ;  but  his  strength 


534  TIBERIUS.  [XWTE   G. 

After  the  death  of  Tiberius  many  of  the  patrician  faction 
who  had  prosecuted  others  endeavored  to  lay  their  own  doings 
on  his  shoulders.  Caligula  became  indignant  at  the  attempted 
falsitication,  and  gave  it  a  public  rebuke."* 

In  the  foregoing  sketch  Tiberius  has  been  sometimes  called 
by  the  accustomed  title  of  emperor,  as  a  means  of  avoiding 
the  too  frequent  repetition  of  his  name.  This  title  was,  how- 
ever, repugnant  to  him.  The  term  "  primate  "  would,  in  some 
respects,  be  better.  There  is,  however,  no  title  at  the  present 
day  which  corresponds  exactly  to  his  official  position.  The 
appended  extract  on  his  personal  appearance  will  not  be  with- 
out interest  for  some  readers."^ 

§  v.    I'acitus  falsifies  History. 

The  Memoirs  written  by  Tiberius  have  unfortunately  per- 
ished, unless  they  lie  unnoticed  in  some  library.  Our  chief 
resources  for  a  knowledge  of  his  reign  are  three  writers,  Taci- 
tus, Suetonius,  and  Dio  Cassius. 

The  last  mentioned  wrote   nearly  two  centuries  after  the 

failing  him,  he  fell  down  at  a  short  distance  from  his  bed.'  "  —  Sueton. 
Tib.  73,  Bohn's  trans. 

11*  Caligula  on  his  accession  burned  (possibly  by  advice  of  Tiberius) 
the  records  of  testimony  against  his  mother  (Dio  Cass.  59,  o  ;  Sueton. 
Calig.  30).  The  patrician  faction  may  have  deemed  it  a  permission  to 
falsity.  Tliey  complained  bitterly  on  finding  tliat  otlier  records  were  not 
included.  Two  years  after  the  death  of  Til)erius,  Caligula  "entering  the 
Senate  chamber  bestowed  much  praise  on  him  and  blame  upon  the  Senate 
and  peo])le  (?)  for  unjust  detraction  of  him  [compare  his  words  quoted 
on  p.  208].  .  .  .  Thereupon,  enumerating  each  one  of  those  who  had 
been  destroyed,  he  rendered  manifest,  as  it  seemed,  that  to  most  of  them 
THE  SEXATOiis  Were  the  cause  of  destruction.  Of  some  they  were  the 
accusers  ;  against  others  they  were  the  witnesses,  and  on  all  of  them  they 
had  passed  sentence.  These  [records]  he  cau.sed  to  be  read  by  freedmen 
from  the  very  documents  which  he  formerly  said  (?)  had  been  burnt.  He 
added,  that  .  .  .  you,  having  puffed  up  and  s))oiled  Sejanus,  ]mt  him  to 
death.  .  .  .  Saying  these  things  and  recapitulating  the  [senatorial] 
charges  of  unbelief  [against  sundry  persons],  lie  ordered  them  to  be  en- 
graved on  a  brazen  tablet,  and  hurried  from  the  Senate  chamber."  — Dio 
Cass.  59,  K!. 

Hi  "If  \yp  j^^^^y  ti^ust  the  testimony  of  a  noble  sitting  statue,  discovered 
in  modern  times  at  J'iperno,  the  ancient  Privernum,  near  Terracina,  and 
no*  lodged  in  the  gallery  of  the  Vatican,  \vhi(di  has  been  pronounced  to 
be  a  genuine  representation  of  Tiberius,  we  must  believe  that  botli  in 
face  and  figure  he  was  eminently  handsome,  his  body  and  lindis  devel- 
oped in  the  most  admirable  pro)iortions,  and  his  countenance  regular, 
animated,  and  expressive."  —  Merivale,  Hist,  of  ihe  Jlovians,  4,  pi>. 
170,  171. 


§  v.]  TACITUS    FALSIFIES    HISTOEY.  535 

death  of  Tiberius.  He  exercised  no  critical  judgment/^®  yet 
he  has  in  many  instances  furnished  vahiable  information. 
Though  a  senator,  he  quotes  anti-patrician  facts  and  some- 
times what  seems  anti-patrician  ai'gument  ;^"  but  his  patri- 
cian and  anti-patrician  accounts  are  too  often  mixed  in  utter 
confusion. 

Suetonius  wrote  without  chronological  arrangement,  and 
recorded  personal  anecdotes  rather  than  a  connected  history. 
He  was  often  misled  by  patrician  accounts, ^^^  yet  not  inten- 
tionalh',  for  he  narrates  at  times  what  must  have  been  very 
unacceptable  to  the  aristocracy.  His  easy  credence  of  inde- 
cent stories  is  objectionable. 

Tacitus  is  our  most  copious  source  for  the  history  of  Tibe- 
rius. His  arrangement  is  expressed  by  the  title  Annals, 
each  year  being  treated  by  itself  This  aids  the  reader  in 
studying  the  sequence  of  events.  He  has,  however,  two  main 
faults.  He  copies  the  grossest  patrician  misrepresentations, 
not  merely  in  ignorance,  but  with  a  knowledge  of  their  un- 
truth. Secondly,  he  superadds  his  own  discoloration  and 
falsification.  A  long  article,  or  a  work  perhaps,  would  be 
requisite  to  treat  the  subject  fully.  A  few  items  may  suffice 
to  point  out  his  dishonesty. 

The  imwillingness  of  Tiberius  to  call  Augustus  god  was  a 
matter  of  notoriety."^  Tacitus,  a  member,  in  early  life,  of 
the  popular  party,  while  friends  and  acquaintances  of  Tiberius 
were  yet  living,  cannot  have  been  ignorant  of  the  fact.  Yet, 
writing  in  the  days  of  Trajan,   when  it  was  less  commonly 


116  "My  purpose  is  ...  to  write  connectedly  whatever  I  find  stated, 
.  .  .  without  being  inquisitive,  and  without  suggesting  [to  others] 
whether  an  act  were  just  or  unjust,  nor  whether  the  narrative  concern- 
ing it  he  false  or  true." — Dio  Cass.  54,  15. 

m  "Then  another  laugliable  incident  took  place.  [The  Senate]  voted 
tliat  he  [Tiberius]  shouhl  select  as  nianj^  of  themselves  as  he  wished,  and 
should  have  twenty  of  this  number  (chosen  by  lot)  as  guards,  armed  with 
swords,  whenever  Ire  should  enter  the  Senate  chamber.  For- — inasmuch 
as  the  outside  was  guarded  by  soldiers,  and  none  but  senators  were  per- 
mitted to  enter —  they  [thereby]  recognized  that  the  guard  was  gi\-en 
him  solely  agaixst  themselves  as  his  enemies."  —  Dio  Cass.  58,  17. 
This  was  in  a.  d.  32,  shortly  after  the  rebellion.  The  connection  im- 
jilies  that,  instead  of  coining  from  a  writer  on  the  popular  side,  i£  was 
an  expression  of  chagrin  by  some  patrician. 

^^*  A  striking  instance  of  this  is  that  he  attributes  (Sueton.  Tib.  61) 
not  merely  the  murder  of  Sejanus  and  others,  but  the  enactment  against 
mourning  (see  p.  527),  to  Tiberius. 

11^  See  Velleius  Paterculus,  in  note  48. 


536  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

known,  he  treats  his  readei*  to  the  pi-ecious  fiction  belo\v,^'-° 
and  on  various  occasions  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Tiberius  the 
expression  Divine  Augmhis}'^^ 

Again  :  Tacitus  convicts  himself  of  knowing,  that  Tiberius, 
so  far  from  being  at  enmity  with  Sejanus,  or  having  murdered 
him,  would  not  even  after  his  death  believe  the  cliarges 
against  him.  Yet,  in  the  face  of  this,  he  fabricates  speeches, 
and  puts  them  into  the  mouth  of  Tiberius  and  others,  imply- 
ing that  Sejanus  was  by  Tiberius  deemed,  and  had  been 
treated  as,  his  enemy.^^^     By  comparing,  in  a  single  instance, 


i'-^"  Claudia  Pulchva,  a  cousin  and  partisan  of  Agrippina,  and  therefoi'e 
patrician  in  politics,  was  prosecuted  by  Doniitius  At'er,  the  greatest 
pleader  wliom  Quiutilian  {Instit.  12,  11,  ;!)  had  ever  heard.  For  the  real 
charges  against  her  Tacitus  probably  substitutes  (as  in  some  other  cases) 
fictions,  and  then  indulges  in  the  following:  "Agrippina,  ever  vehe- 
ment, and  then  in  a  flame  on  account  of  the  perilous  situation  of  her 
kinswoman,  flew  to  Tiberius,  and  by  chance  found  him  sacrificing  to  the 
emperor  his  father.  When,  availing  herself  of  the  circumstance  to  up- 
braid him,  she  told  him  '  that  it  was  inconsistent  in  him  to  oli'er  victims 
to  the  deified  Augustus  and  persecute  his  children  :  his  divine  spirit  was 
not  transfused  into  dumb  statues  :  the  genuine  images  of  Augustus  were 
the  living  descendants  from  his  celestial  blood  :  she  herself  was  one  ; 
one  sensible  of  impending  danger,  and  now  in  the  mournful  state  of  a 
supytliant.  In  vain  was  Pulchra  set  up  as  the  object  of  attack  ;  when 
the  only  cause  of  her  overthrow  was  her  affection  for  Agrippina  foolishly 
cariied  even  to  adoration.'" — Tacitus,  An.  4,  52,  Bohn's  trans. 

^■•^i  Tacitus,  An.  1,  11  ;  2,  :5S ;  3,  04,  .")(!.  The  same  expression  is,  in  the 
Annals,  3,  ;u,  put  into  the  mouth  of  Drusus,  son  of  Tiberius.  The  state- 
ment of  Tacitus  {All.  4,  .")7)  that  Tiberius  visited  Campania  for  the  pro- 
fessed purjiose  "of  dedicating  a  temple  to  Jupiter  at  Capua  and  one  to 
Augustas  at  Nola,"  is  probably  a  mere  falsehood. 

1^^  Under  the  year  35,  Tacitus  says,  that  "although  three  years  had 
elapsed  since  the  death  of  Sejanus,  j'et  time,  prayers,  and  satiety,  which 
are  wont  to  mollify  others,  did  not  so  mollify  Tiberius,  but  that  he 
punished  uncertain  or  obsolete  [actions]  as  if  weighty  and  recent.  Under 
fear  of  this  Fulcinius  Trio  [consul  when  Sejanus  was  nuu'dered,  and  one 
of  the  chief  plotters  against  him  and  Tiberius],  not  enduring  the  accusers 
who  were  pressing  him  hard,  put  together,  in  his  '  last  tablets,'  many 
savage  accusations  against  Macro  and  the  chief  freedmen  of  Cresar  ;  ob- 
jecting to  [Ca?sar]  himself  a  mind  weakened  by  age,  and  [treating]  his 
absence  as  exile.  Which  tablets,  concealed  by  the  heirs,  Tiberius  ordered 
to  be  recited,  [Ijccausc;]  ostentatious  of  his  enduring  libeity  [of  s]ieech]  in 
others  and  indifferent  to  his  own  infamy,  or  [because]  iiavinm;  been  long 
lONOitANT  AS  TO  THE  CHIMES  OF  Seianus,  he  preferred  eventually,  that 
in  any  mannt^r  whatever,  the  statements  [which  brought  them  to  light  ?] 
should  be  made  commonly  known."  — Tacitus,  An.  6,  •>'. 

The  concluding  reason  shows  Tacitus  to  have  becui  aware,  that,  for 
three  or  four  years  after  the  death  of  Sejanus,  any  crimes  attributed  to 
that  individual  had  remained  discredited  by  Tiberius.      The  remarks, 


§  v.]  TACITUS   FALSIFIES   HISTOKY.  537 

the  account  of  Tacitus  with  that  of  Dio  Cassius,  a  more  defi- 
nite opinion  can  be  attained  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
former  adds  to  his  authorities.^^^ 

The  foregoing  are  but  individual  instances  of  misrepresen- 
tation. Its  frequency  and  extent  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  a  reader  might  peruse  Tacitus,  and  that  readers 
generally,  if  not  universally,  have  perused  him,  without  con- 
sciousness of  attempted  patrician  reljellions  in  a.  D.  14  and 
19,  and  without  knowledge  that  such  a  I'ebellion  had  broken 
ferociously  out  in  a.  d.  31.  What  would  be  thought  concern- 
ing a  modern  historian  of  Germany  in  1848,  or  of  the  United 
States  in  1860-1865,  who  should  persistently  ignore,  in  the 
former  country,  a  popular  uprising,  or,  in  the  latter,  an  effort 
of  the  slaveholders  to  dismember  the  government.  His  eftbrt 
would,  because  of  present  facilities  for  preserving  information, 
be  abortive,  but  not,  certaiiily,  more  untruthful  in  object,  than 

therefore,  which  Tacitus  at  an  earlier  date  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Tibe- 
rius and  others,  as  also  his  own  insinuations  {An.  5,  0,  7;  6,  :%  8,  14,  19, 
'23,  2'),  oo)  IMPLYING  hostility  of  the  emperor  to  Sejanus,  were  by  Tacitus 
himself  known  to  be  fictions  for  the  furtherance  of  falsehood.  The  be- 
ginning of  the  foi'egoing  extract  admits  no  plausible  inter})retation  save 
wn  the  supjiosition  that  Tacitus  knew  Trio  to  have  been  pkoskcuted 

WITH  THE  APPROVAL  OF  TiBERIUS,   FOU  COMPLICITY  IN    THE  MURDER  OF 

Sejanus  and  his  friends.  The  unscrupulous  patricianisin  of  Tacitus 
is  evinced  by  his  treating  an  atrocious,  wholesale  murder  as  having  be- 
come obsolete  in  three  years.  The  light  which  the  foregoing  throws  on 
the  untruthfulness  of  Tacitus  is  not  affected  by  the  obvious  absurdity  of 
supposing  that  "  tablets  "  which,  according  to  both  himself  and  Dio  Cas- 
sius, were  silent  about  Sejanus,  should  have  been  recited  in  order  to 
throw  odium  on  him. 

123  Dio  Cassius  copies  a  patrician  authority  in  which  the  term  Ecpuhlic 
has  been  obviously  substituted  for  Souitr,  —  the  two  ideas  being  identical 
in  some  patrician  minds,  —  and  in  which  the  exile  of  Gallio  is  incorrectly 
attributed  to  Tiberius. 

Tiberius  banished  Junius  Gallio,  "Junius  Gallio,  who  hod  proposed 
"who  had  proposed,  that  a  seat  in  'that  tiie  pretorian  soldiers,  liaving 
the  theatre  amoup;  the  kniglits  should  fulfilled  their  term  of  service,  should 
be  triven  to  soldiers  after  serving  their  thence  ncquire  the  privilen;e  of  sitting 
time,  —  charsinp;  that  he  was  appar-  in  the  fourteen  rows  of  the  theatre  al- 
ently  incitinc;  them  to  ftxvor  the  Re-  lotted  to  the  Roman  knights,'  he  re- 
public [rhe  Senate]  rather  than  him-  buked  vehementlv,  and,  as  if  present, 
self."  —Dio  Cass.  58, 18.  Cp.  p.  532.     demanded  '  what  business  he  had  with 

the  soldiers,  whose  duty  bound  them 
to  observe  only  the  orders  of  the  emperor  [Imperntnris,  commander],  and  from 
the  emperor  alone  to  receive  their  rewards.  Had  he  forsooth  discovered  what 
had  escaped  the  sMp;acity  of  the  divine  Augustus?  Or  was  it  not  rather  a 
method  invented  by  a  satellite  of  Sejanus,  to  raise  sedition  and  discord? 
an  ar  ifice  by  which,  under  jiretence  of  conferring  honor,  he  might  stimulate 
the  simple  minds  of  the  soldiers  to  lireak  through  the  established  regulations 
of  the  service.'  "  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,  3,  Bohn's  trans,  altered. 
23* 


538  TIBERIUS.  [note  g. 

that  of  Tacitus.  The  portion  of  his  Annals  which  mentions 
the  execution  of  Sejanus  is,  indeed,  lost,  but  his  extant  treat- 
ment of  the  attendant  circumstances  leaves  no  doubt  of  elab- 
orated imposition. 

The  dealing  of  Tacitus  with  Livilla  and  Agrippina  may 
illustrate  his  treatment  of  the  conspiracy.  Livilla  was  con- 
nected with  the  popular  party  and  was  in  friendship  with 
Tiberius.  Agrippina  was  prominent  in  patricitui  movements 
and  at  enmity  witli  him.  The  rebellious  pati'icians  who  mur- 
dered the  former,  endeavored,  in  her  case  as  in  that  of  Seja- 
nus, to  mitigate  their  own  crimes  by  blackening  the  character 
of  their  victim.^-*  Tacitus,  to  throw  his  readers  off  their 
guard,  states  under  the  year  23,  when  no  motive  for  falsifica- 
tion appears,  that  she  was  seduced  by  Sejanus  whom  she  aided 
to  poison  her  husband,  but  that  nothing  was  known  of  it  until 
eight  years  later, '^^     Eight  years  later,  lest  the  reader  might 

^-*  The  earliest,  charge  by  the  cons]ura.tors  against  Livilla  was  probably 
one  preserved  by  Pliny  {Nat.  Hist.  29,  8,  r.)  of  im^iroper  intiniaey,  not 
with  Sejanus,  but  with  Eudemus,  her  physician. 

12*  We  are  told  by  Tacitus  {An.  4,  3),  Sejanus  "entic(;d  her  by 
adultery  and  .  .  .  impelled  lier  to  tlie  murder  of  her  husband"  ;  and 
again  (4,8),  "Sejanus  .  .  .  chose  a  ]>oison  whit'h,  creeping  [only]  by  de- 
grees into  the  system,  should  resemble  an  ac^cidental  disease.  It  was 
given  to  Drusus  [hei'  husbaiul]  by  Lygdus  the  eunuch,  as  became  known 
eight  years  afterwaids"  ;  and  again  (3,  ll),  "The  method  of  [effecting] 
this  crime  [that  is,  the  sole  evidence  of  its  existence]  divulged  [eight 
years  afterwards]  by  A)iicata,  wife  of  Sejanus,  was  pa/rfacf.vs  substan- 
tiated by  putting  Eudemus  [the  jdiysician  of  Livilla]  and  Lygdus  to  the 
torture."  The  extant  works  of  Tacitus  do  not  contain  this  alleged  r(>vela- 
tion  by  Apicata,  but  it  has  been  transmitted  us  liy  Dio  Cassius  (58,  ll): 
"Apicata  .  .  .  having  learned  that  the  children  were  dead,  and  liav- 
ing  seen  their  bodies  on  the  [malefactors']  stairs,  went  away  and  having 
written  in  a  book  concerning  the  death  of  Drusus  many  things  against 
his  wife  Livilla,  — -on  whose  account  (?)  slie  had  quarrelled  with  lier  hus- 
band so  as  no  longer  to  live  with  him,  —  she  sent  it  to  Tiberius,  and  then 
committed  suicide." 

According  to  this  story,  Apicata  —  at  variance  with  her  liusband  and 
conscious  of  liis  crime  —  refrained  during  eight  years  fiom  mentioning  it. 
Then,  wlieii  he  had  been  murdei'ed,  she  looked  at  the  lifeless  forms  of 
her  children,  and  —  after  viewing  the  innocent  little  daughter  who  had 
been  outraged  and  strangled —  wrote  to  Tiberius,  not  to  complain  of  the 
murderers,  but  to  palliate  their  crimes  "oy  narrating  events  eight  years 
old.  If  the  hard-pushed  conspirators  professed  during  the  lifetime  of 
Tiberius  any  information  from  Apicata,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  did  not, 
until  after  his  death,  assume  the  form  of  a  letter  to  himself.  If  they  had 
tortun^d  to  death  Eudemus  and  Lygdus,  they  would  deem  it  safe  to  fabri- 
cate evidence  in  their  name. 

Tacitus  diverts  scrutiny  from  his  narrative  by  mixing  with  it  cxtrane- 


§  v.]  TACITUS   FALSIFIES    HISTORY.  539 

notice  that  the  charge  originated  with  political  enemies  who 
had  murdered  her,  he  treats  it  as,  since  a  long  time,  well 
known.^'^^ 

In  the  case  of  Agrippina,  Tacitus  quotes  some  charges 
which,  as  narrated  in  his  pages,  do  not  bring  to  light,  and 
scarcely  even  suggest,  any  political  criminality.^"^''  To  these 
he  adds  an  aspersion  of  her  private  character,  fabricated  prob- 
ably by  himself,  with  the  object  of  refuting  it  and  of  thus 
placing  her  in  the  light  of  a  vindicated  woman. ^'^^  The 
charge  of  prompting  conspiracy  and  instigating  murder  is 
wholly  overlooked. 

Whenever  Tacitus  becomes  pious,  or  undertakes  to  philoso- 
phize or  moralize,  to  expatiate  on  jurisprudence  or  antiquities, 
or  to  address  our  sympathies,  the  reader  should  be  doubly 
watchful  against  effort  to  conceal  some  patrician  roguery  or 
else  some  patrician  defeat.  Pious  indignation  against  Tibe- 
rius for  not  consulting  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  is  but  a  means 
to  divert  attention  from  the  position  of  reactionaries  afraid 
of  their  former  hobby. ^^  Egyptian  antiquities  are  a  screen 
to  plottings  of  rebellion  by  Germanicus  in  Egypt.^^*^  An  ac- 
count of  usury  legislation  throws  somewhat  into  the  shade  a 


ons  matters,  and  endeavors  to  inspire  credence  by  patting  it  forward  as  a 
defence  of  Tiberius  against  the  cliarge  of  poisoning  his  son,  even  while 
stating  that  no  writer  had  ever  made  such  a  charge.  It  winds  up  as  fol- 
lows: "Nor  has  any  writer  appeared  so  hostile  as  to  charge  it  upon 
Tiberius  ;  though  in  other  instances  they  have  sedulously  collected  and 
aggravated  every  action  of  his.  My  purpose  in  relating  and  refuting  this 
rumor  was,  under  so  glaring  an  example,  to  destroy  the  credit  of  ground- 
less hearsays,  and  to  request  of  those  into  whose  hands  my  present  un- 
dertaking shall  come,  that  the}'  would  not  prefer  vague  and  improbable 
rumors,  unscrupulously  credited,  to  the  narrations  of  truth  unadulterated 
with  romance."— Tacitus,  An.  4,  11,  Bohn's  trans,  altered.  Should  any 
one  wish  model  imjiudence  in  a  party  renegade,  let  him  read  Tacitus. 

12^  Tacitus,  An.  6,  -2,  quoted  in  note  99. 

127  Tacitus,  An.  4,  (;7,  quoted  in  note  95. 

1-^  Tacitus  (An.  6,  i."))  quotes  Tiberius  as  accusing  Agrippina  of  adul- 
tery with  Asinius  Gallus.  Had  he  attributed  to  him  a  charge  against 
her  of  adultery  with  the  man  in  the  moon,  the  certainty  could  hardly  be 
greater  of  his  knowing  that  no  such  utterance  had  proceeded  from  Tibe- 
rius or  from  any  cotemporary  source.  Gallus,  a  friend  of  Tiberius,  was  a 
leader  of  the  popular  party.  As  such  his  life  (see  note  68)  was  in  danger 
from  the  animosity  of  Agrippina's  adherents.  The  absurd  quotation  can- 
not have  been  invented  before  the  time  of  Tacitus,  and  not  improbably 
originated  with  himself. 

129  See  Ch.  VII.  note  103. 

130  Cp.  pp.  186,  187,  with  Tac.  An.  2,  60,  61. 


540  TIBERIUS.  [note   G. 

senatorial  enactment  "whose  i)Lirp6se  was  to  make  the  borrow- 
ing of  money  easy  for  senators  and  difficult  for  otliers.^^^ 
Meditations  on  Astrology  and  Fate  suggest  —  what  Tacitus 
shrunk  pi'obably  from  asserting  —  that  Drusus,  the  worthless 
son  of  Germanicus,  suftered,  not  for  his  crimes,  but  owing  to 
blind  fate,  or  because  the  gods  take  no  interest  in  man.^^-^ 
With  the  same  object,  in  the  sections  immediately  consequent 
on  the  foregoing,  Tacitus  appeals  to  sympathy  in  behalf  of 
Drusus,  because  those  in  charge  of  him  "  toolc  note  of  his 
countenance,  groans,  and  secret  repinings,"  which  means  —  if 
we  may  judge  from  information  in  the  same  paragraph  —  that 
they  had  to  bear  with  the  violence  and  imprecations  of  their 
prisoner.  Tacitus  evidently  wishes  his  readers  to  infer,  what 
he  has  been  guarded  enough  to  avoid  affirming,  that  Drusus 
died  of  starvation. '^^ 

The  disposition  of  Tacitus  to  veil  or  suppress  mention  of 
crime  couunitted,  or  ridicule  incurred,  by  the  patrician  party 
is,  naturally  enough,  conjoined  to  misrepresentation  of  such 
popular  leaders  as  were  most  hated  by  patricians.  No  pecul- 
iarity of  his  work  is  more  obvious  or  offensive  than  this.  If 
Tiberius  rejects  honors,  the  historian,  instead  of  appreciating 
the  fact,  sulvjoins  a  remark  to  pervert  the  reader's  understand- 
ing of  it.^^'*  If  Gallus  and  Gallio  are  each  furnished  with  a 
military  guard,  this  is  represented,  not  in  its  true  light  as  a 
friendly  effort  to  protect  them,  but  as  a  device  of  Tiberius  for 
their  annoyance. '^^     A  glaring  instance  of  the  same  tendency 

131  See  note  112. 

132  Tac.  y^?l.  6,  21,  22. 

133  Tacitus,  An.  6,  -2^,  24.  The  charge  against  Drusus,  —  attributed 
in  this  last  section  to  Tiberius,  —  of  "a  disposition  cxitiahilcm  in  suos 
destructive  towards  his  own  rehitives,"  claims  careful  consideration  as  to 
Avhetlier  it  means,  that  he  had  murdered  his  aunt,  Livilla.  Compare  note 
100.  A  reader  unfamiliar  with  Roman  history  should  guard  against  con- 
fusing this  Drusus  with  Livilla's  husband,  the  son  of  Tiberius. 

131  "  Neitlier  however  would  he,  on  account  of  these  acts,  accept  the 
name  of  'Father  of  his  Country,'  a  title  oti'cred  him  before;  nay,  he 
sharply  rebuked  such  as  said,  'His  divine  occupations,'  and  called  him 
'Lord.'  Hence  it  was  difficult  and  dangerous  to  s))eak  under  a 
pi'ince  who  dreaded  liberty  and  abhorred  flattery."  — Tacitus,  An.  2,  S7, 
]5ohn's  trans.  The  dread  of  liberty  is  ilatl}'  contradicted  by  statements 
(forced  out  of  Tacitus  ?)  in  the  Annals,  4,  (;,  quoted  in  note  5. 

135  The  seizure  of  Gallus  has  been  mentioned  in  note  68.  The  guard 
and  encouragement  given  him  by  Tiberius  were  subsequently  misrepre- 
sented by  the  patrician  party  (Dio  Cass.  58,  .'i)  as  contrivances  for  his 
annoyance,  that  his  life  and  uneasiness  might  be  prolonged  instead  of 
ended  by  suicide.     The  year  30  is  lost  from  the  Annals  of  Tacitus,  and 


§  v.]  TACITUS    FALSIFIES    HISTORY,  541 

occurs  in  his  dealing  with  Domitian.  The  hitter  (perhaps  to 
end  needless  war  in  Britain)  had  recalled  Agricola.  When,  at 
a  later  date,  Agricola  was  ill,  Domitian  made  kindly  inquiries 
concerning  him,  and,  on  the  last  day,  sent  repeatedly  to  in- 
form himself.  The  contemptible  comments  of  Tacitus  are 
given  below. '^®  He  had  himself  received  kindness  from  Do- 
mitian and  was  nevertheless  willing  to  please  his  new  asso- 
ciates, the  aristocracy,  by  attributing  to  crime  in  Domitian 
what  was  evidently  a  courtesy,  if  not  an  office  of  friendship. 
Yet  this  is  the  man  who  tells  his  readers  their  need  of  aid  to 
understand  history,  and  who  puts  himself  forward  as  its  inter- 
preter.^^' 

In  the  revival  of  learning  an  overestimate  of  long-neglected 
heathen  authors  was  natural.  That  Tacitus  should,  however, 
until  the  present  day,  have  retained  reputation  as  a  reliable 
historian,  is  no  credit  to  modern  research. 

with  it  is  lost  any  account  of  Gallus  being  seized.  But  the  spirit  of  the 
lost  narrative  can  be  safL4y  judged  from  the  present  jiortion  which  nar- 
rates the  death  of  Gallus.  "The  death  of  Asinius  Gallus  became  gener- 
ally known.  That  lie  perished  through  famine,  was  undoubted  ;  but 
whether  of  his  own  accord  or  by  constraint,  was  held  uncertain.  The 
emperor  was  consulted,  'whether  he  would  sutler  (0  him  to  be  buried,' 
when  he  blushed  not  to  grant  it  as  a  favor."  —  Tacitus,  An.  6,  '2:', 
Bohn's  trans. 

The  guard  for  Gallio  (compare  note  68)  is  thus  noticed  :  "As  it  was 
alleged  that  he  would  experience  no  hardship  from  an  exile  at  Lesbos,  a 
celebrated  and  charming  island,  which  he  liad  selected,  he  was  hauled 
back  to  Rome,  and  kept  under  guard  in  the  house  of  a  magistrate." 
—  Tacitus,  Jn.  6,  :',  Bohn's  trans. 

13B  "Commiseration  was  aggravated  by  a  prevailing  report  that  he 
[Agricola]  was  taken  off  by  poison.  I  cannot  venture  to  affirm  anything 
certain  of  this  matter ;  yet,  during  the  whole  coarse  of  his  illness,  the 
l)rincipal  of  the  imyierial  freedmen  and  the  most  confidential  of  the  phy- 
sicians was  sent  much  more  frequently  than  was  customary  with  a  court 
whose  visits  were  chiefly  paid  by  messages  ;  whether  that  was  done  out 
of  real  solicitude,  or  for  the  purposes  of  state  inquisition,  on  the  day 
of  his  decease  it  is  certain  that  accounts  of  his  approaching  dissolution 
were  every  instant  transmitted  to  the  emperor  by  couriers  stationed  for 
the  purpose  ;  and  no  one  believed  that  the  information,  which  so  nuich 
pains  was  taken  to  accelerate,  could  be  received  with  regret."  —  Tacitus, 
Agric.  4.3,  Bohn's  trans. 

13'  "  It  was  pertinent  to  search  out  and  narrate  these  things,  since  few 
by  their  own  wisdom  can  discern  honorable  things  from  the  more  de- 
grading, useful  things  fiom  injurious.  The  majority  are  taught  by  the 
fortunes  of  others."  —  Tacitus,  An.  4,  33. 


542  EGYPTIAN   WORSHIP   AT   ROME.  [NOTE   H. 

NOTE  H. 

EGYPTIAN  WORSHIP  AT  ROME. 

The  Egyptian  worship,  equally  with  the  Greek  and  Roman, 
appears  to  have  been  destitute  of,  and  disconnected  from,  any 
teaching  of  its  era,  whether  moral  or  intellectual.  It  con- 
sisted, as  did  the  other  two,  merely  of  rites  and  ceremonies. 
From  the  intelligent  and  moral  it  can  have  had  neither  affec- 
tion nor  respect,  to  which,  in  fact,  it  made  no  claim.  Its 
votaries  at  Rome  can  never  have  been  many. 

Senatorial  partisans  from  an  early  date  showed  hostility  to 
Egyptian  rites,  and,  in  times  of  patrician  triumph,  suppressed 
them.^  These  rites  were  not  under  senatorial  management, 
and  patricians  had  no  wish  to  tolerate  what  they  did  not  con- 
trol. The  popular  party  deemed  senatorial  management  of 
such  matters  uncalled  for.  Hence,  in  periods  of  popular  vic- 
tory, we  find  the  Egyptian  religion  legalized.^  How  far  this 
was  due  to  mere  party  feeling  and  how  for  to  enlarged  con- 
ceptions of  human  rights  would  be  difficult  to  determine. 

1  "When  the  Senate  (in  B.  c.  219)  had  decreed  that  the  fanes  of  Isis  and 
Serapis  should  be  destroyed,  and  no  one  of  the  workmen  ventured  to  toucli 
it,  L.  iEniilius  PauUus,  the  consnl,  layincj  aside  his  garment,  seized  an 
axe  and  cut  into  its  doors." — Valer.  Max.  1,  3,  :>.  Party  feeling  ran 
high  at  this  time.  The  workmen  may  have  been  influenced  by  sympathy 
with  or  fear  of  the  popular  party. 

In  B.  c.  54,  "the  Senate  decreed  destruction  to  their  temples  [those  of 
Serapis  and  Isis]  which  some  had  individually  (?)  erected."  —  Dio  Cass. 
40,  47.  In  B.  c.  48,  "at  the  close  of  the  year,  among  other  ])ro(ligies,  a 
swarm  of  bees  settled  in  the  Capitol  near  the  statue  of  Hercules,  and  the 
[public]  soothsayers  decreed,  as  the  rites  of  Isis  were  then  taking  place, 
that  her  sacred  structures,  and  those  of  Serapis,  .should  be  destroyed."  — 
Dio  Cass.  42,  20. 

In  B.  V.  21,  during  patrician  ascendency,  the  senatorial  leader,  Agrippa, 
"banished  Egyptian  rites,  which  had  again  invaded  the  city,  forbidding 
any  one,  even  in  a  suburb,  to  perform  them  within  a  mile  [of  the  city]." 
—  Dio  Cass.  54,  c.  They  were  (see  y.  188  n.)  again  suppressed  in 
A.  D.  19,  when  the  Senate  was  preparing  for  rebellion  against  Tiberius. 

^  In  B.  c.  58,  the  year  (see  p.  149)  of  popular  triumph  over  Cicero,  the 
Egyptian  worship  was  legalized,  as  we  learn  from  the  following  address 
to  the  Romans  :  "What  !  did  you  not  [from  and]  after  the  consulship 
of  Piso  and  Gabinius  place  in  the  number  of  your  gods  the  Egyptian 
divinities  named  Sera])is  and  Isis?"  —  Arnobius,  .-ido.  Gmt.  2,  ?.]. 

In  B.  C.  43,  the  year  subsequent  to  Civsar's  assassination,  the  Ti'ium- 
virs  "voted  a  temple  [each]  to  Serapis  and  Isis."  —  Dio  Cass.  47,  l."). 


NOTE   H.]  EGYPTIAN   WORSHIP   AT    ROME.  543 

About  the  close  of  the  first  century,  Tacitus,  a  reactionary 
conservative,  first  holds  it  up  to  his  countrymen  as  an  object 
for  their  wonder,  and  during  the  next  century  we  find  the 
gods  of  Egypt  regularly  installed  at  Rome.^  Tliis  installation 
must  have  come  from  the  conservative  heathens  who  had  been 
in  powei'. 

The  cause  of  this  change  in  the  senatorial  reactionaries  is 
a  simple  one.  They  originally  thought  themselves  powerful 
enougli  to  control  matters,  and  wished  no  ceremonies  which 
had  been  introduced  by  others  than  their  own  party.  But 
at  the  close  of  the  first  century,  and  still  more  during  the  sec- 
ond, heathenism  was  visibly  going  down  before  monotheism. 
Its  hard-pushed  advocates  were  but  too  thankful  therefore  to 
club  forces.  The  Egyptian  religion- — setting  aside  its  deifi- 
cation of  the  lower  animals,  which  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
transplanted  into  Italy  —  stood,  an  opponent  of  monotheism, 
essentially  on  the  same  ground  as  the  Roman  one.  It  con- 
sisted of  rites,  ceremonies,  and  omens,  recognized  images  as 
properly  representing  divine  beings,  and  regarded  these  beings 
as  devoid  of  moral  object  in,  we  cannot  say  governing  the  world, 
but  in  their  occasional  attention  to  some  of  its  concerns.  The 
Roman  religion  could  not  be  advocated  without  making  ground 
on  which  the  Egyptian  could  stand.  In  the  time  of  Dio  Cas- 
sius,  at  the  close  of  the  second  century  and  the  beginning  of 
the  third,  this  was  likely  to  have  been  already  so  forced  upon 
heathen  attention  that  it  could  not  be  ignored.  Under  this 
conviction  he  probably  writes  when  he  treats  the  suppression 
of  Egyptian  rites  by  Roman  authorities  as  a  marvel.* 

An  incident  —  pressed  into  service  by  advocates  of  hea- 
thenism, who  felt  the  need  of  changing  front  on  the  Egyptian 
question  —  aftbrds    evidence    that   in  a.  d.    70,   Clu'istianity 


^  TertuUian  tells  the  Latins,  "You  have  reconstructed  altars  to  the 
EoMAN  Serapis." — jI^mI.  6.  Comniodus  "cliauged  his  lodgings,  denying 
that  he  could  sleep  in  the  Palatiuni,  [hecause]  .  .  .  the  maihle  image  of 
Anubis  was  seen  to  change  its  place." — Lampridius,  Comniodus,  16; 
Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  91. 

*  Under  b.  c.  53  or  52,  Dio  Cassiiis  narrates  hloody  rain  (cp.  page 
124 n.)  perspiration  of  a  statue,  wliich  means  probably  condensation  of 
atmospheric  moisture  on  the  stone  or  metal,  an  owl  appearing  in  the  city, 
a  meteor,  and  other  prodigies.  He  then  superadds  :  "Tome  the  decree 
also  in  the  preceding  year  [b.  c.  54],  near  its  close,  concerning  Serapis 
and  Isis  [com])arc  note  Ij,  a]i]iears  to  have  been  no  less  of  a  prodigy."- — ■ 
Dio  Cass.  40,  17.  By  a  piodigy  he  means,  probably,  the  precursor  of 
ill  foitune. 


544  EGYPTIAN   WORSHIP   AT   EOME.  [NOTE   H. 

was  attracting  attention  at  Alexandria.  While  Vespasian 
was  in  that  city  before  proceeding  to  assume  imperial  power 
at  Rome,  he  was  persuaded  into  a  fictitious  imitation  of  some 
miracles  recorded  in  our  Gospels.  Vespasian's  character 
was,  in  the  main,  honest.  His  objections  to  the  proposed  per- 
formance may  have  been  repugnance  towards  fraud.  If  so, 
however,  he  must,  like  some  other  honest  men  when  reason- 
ing with  rogues,  have  used  arguments  which  he  deemed  more 
intelligible  to  them  than  moral  ones.^  His  subsequent  treat- 
ment of  the  Alexandrines  indicates  chagrin  or  indignation, 
rather  than  satisfaction.®  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  or 
his  children  ever  alluded  to  the  miracles  afterwards.  Both 
he  and  they  were  dead  before  any  extant  record  of  them  was 
made. 

Of  the  miracles  attributed  to  Vespasian  both  may,  and  one 


^  Vespasian  was  of  humble  origin,  and  for  that  I'eason  was  not,  when 
Nero  perished,  prominent  as  an  aspirant  for  the  imperial  power.  Sue- 
tonius says  of  him,  while  at  Alexandria  :  "Authority,  and  as  it  were  a 
certain  dignity,  was  lacking  to  a  prince  whom  no  one  had  anticipated, 
and  who  was  just  entering  on  office.  This  [dignity]  also  was  added.  A 
blind  man  from  the  lower  class,  and  one  who  had  a  lame  leg,  approached 
him,  as  he  sat  before  the  tribunal,  praying  him  to  cure  them.  [They 
alleged  that]  it  had  been  shown  them  during  sleep  (or  'during  the  night,' 
fcr  qideton),  by  Sr.KAris,  that  he  could  restore  the  eyes  by  spitting  on 
them,  and  make  the  leg  sound  if  he  would  deign  to  touch  it  with  his 
heel."  —  Sueton.  J^cspas.  7.  The  cure  of  the  blind  man  is  cojiied  from 
Mark  8,  'i!.  The  lame  leg  was,  according  to  Tacitus  and  Dio  Cassius,  a 
lame  hand.  As  we  follow  one  author  or  the  other,  we  might  select  one 
miracle  (Mark  2,  11,  12;  Matt.  9,  ()  or  a  different  one  (Mark  3,  ',; 
Matt.  12,  1.!;  Luke  6,  Id)  in  the  Gospels  as  the  original  which  promi)te(l 
it.  Keitlier  cure  can  have  been  suggested  by  anything  in  mythology,  to 
which,  in  fact,  benevolent  miraclefe  seem  to  have  been  unknown.  Both 
Tacitus  and  Suetonius  represent  Vespasian  as  reluctant  to  play  his  part. 
Persuasion  —  of  jihysicians  according  to  the  former,  of  friends  accoiding 
to  the  latter  —  overcame  his  reluctance  ;  their  final  argument,  according 
to  Tacitus  (Hist.  4,  si),  being  that  "  the  glory  of  a  cure  [if]  performed 
would  belong  to  Ciesar,  the  ridicule  of  a  failure  would  attach  to  the 
afflicted  [on  whose  assertion  it  was  attempted]."  Persuasion  of  this  kind 
would  not  have  been  .used  in  answer  to  MORAL  objections. 

^  "  He  renewed  many  taxes,  some  of  them  long  disused,  and  increased 
existing  ones.  .  .  .  Therefore  the  Alexandiiues  reju'oached  him  ON 
OTHER  ACCOUNTS,  and  '  because  you  exact  six  oboli  additionally,'  so  that 
Vespasian,  though  a  very  mild  man,  got  angry  and  commanded  the  six 
obo/i  per  man  to  be  collected  and  took  counsel  about  punishing  them,  .  .  . 
but,  on  Titus  petitioning  for  them,  Vesjiasian  forgave  them.  They  how- 
ever did  not  desist,  but  shouted  loudly,  in  some  j)ublic  assembly,  to 
Titus,  saying,  'we  excuse  him,  for  he  did  not  know  how  to  act  the  em- 
peror.'" —  Dio  Cas3.  66,  t:. 


NOTE  I.]      JEWISH  EEVOLT  UNDER  NERO.  545 

perhaps  must,  have  been  suggested  by  Mark's  gospel.''  If  go, 
it  corroborates  the  tradition  that  this  gospel  v?as  published  in 
Alexandria.*  The  publication  must  have  been  three  or  four 
years  previous  to  Vespasian's  arrival  there. 

Gibbon  suspects  the  Flavian  family  of  introducing  Egyptian 
worship  at  Rome.®  For  this  there  is  no  sufficient  groimd. 
Vespasian  in  one  instance  while  at  Alexandria  visited  the 
temple  of  Serapis,-^"  from  political  motives  or  from  easy 
good-nature.  Titus,  from  motives  of  policy,  did  a  somewhat 
similar  action."  Vespasian  sympathized  so  little  with  the 
aristocracy  that  he  would  scarcely  have  troubled  himself  to 
suppress  Egyptian  or  Jevyish  rites.  Any  legal  re-establish- 
ment by  the  conservatives  of  the  Egyptian  religion  at  iJorue 
took  ])lace  more  probably  under  Marcus  Antoninus  ^^  (Athenag. 
iSupjAicat.  §  1)  wheo  the  Senate  were  likely  to  favor  it. 


NOTE   I. 

JEWISH   REVOLT  UNDER  NERO. 

§L    Outline  of  its  Course. 

The  commotions  which  preceded  this  revolt  began  as  early, 
certainly,  as  the  autumn  of  A.  D.  64,  shortly  after  the  fire  at 
Rome,^  and  the  revolt  itself  began  at  Ceesarea  in  the  spring 

^  Compare  note  5. 

®  According  to  Eusebius  {Ecc.  Hist.  6,  14)  Peter's  teaching  at  Rome 
was  written  down  by  Mark,  who  subsequently  (Euseb.  Ecc.  Hist.  1,  k;; 
.Jerome,  De  Vir.  Illust.  8)  carried  his  manuscript  to  Alexandria  and  pub- 
lished it  there,  deeming  it  perhaps  a  safer  place  than  Rome  for  its  publi- 
cation. 

^  Gibbon,  Roman  Empire,  ch.  2,  note  16. 

1^  This  is  placed  by  Tacitus  {Hist.  4,  82)  after,  and  by  Suetonius 
(  Vespas.  7)  before  the  miracles. 

"  See  Ch.  X.  note  5. 

^^  "Such  was  the  terror  caused  by  the  Marcomannian  war,  that  Anto- 
ninus summoned  priests  from  every  direction,  fulfilled  foreign  rttes, 
[and]  purified  Rotne  after  every  [heathen  religious]  fashion."  —  CapitO- 
linus,  Marc.  Antoninus,  13  ;  Script.  Hist.  August,  p.  48. 

1  See  pp.  243,  244.  Sulpicius  Severus,  also,  a  writer  at  the  close 
of  the  fourth  century,  after  narrating  the  deaths  of  Paul  and  Peter,  adds : 
"During  these  events  at  Rome  the  Jews  .  .  .  commenced  to  rebel." 


546  JEWISH  REVOLT  UNDER  NERO.      [NOTE  I. 

of  05,^^  ou  the  occasion  of  the  city  government  being  trans- 
ferred from  Jews  to  heathens.^  The  sarcastic  jest  of  a  hea- 
then gave  some  impulse  to  it.^     The  Jewish  aristocracy,  as  a 


—  Hist.  Sac.  Book  2,  29  ;  De  la  Eigne,  Bihliotheca  Sanctorum  Patrum, 
Vol.  7,  ool.  2*39  B.  The  persecution  of  Christians  at  Rome  was  in  the 
winti-'r  of  <_U-  G5. 

-  Josephus  says:  "The  war  commenced  in  the  second  year  of  the 
procuratorship  of  Floras,  and  the  twklfth  of  Nero's  reign."  —  Antiq.  20, 
11,  1.  And  again  :  "The  war  began  in  the  twelfth  year  of  Nero's  reign, 
and  the  seventeenth  of  Agrippa's,  in  the  month  of  Artemisius."  —  Wars, 
2,  14,  4.  Nero's  twelfth  year  was  the  calendar  year  A.  D.  65,  for  the 
second  year  of  an  emperor  began  always  on  the  first  day  of  January  after 
his  accession,  a  rule  different  from  that  adopted  in  counting  our  years  of 
Independence.  The  month  of  Artemisius  corresponded  with  March  or 
April  or  partly  with  each.  See  note  34.  Agrippa's  seventeenth  year 
cannot  have  been  later  than  A.  D.  65. 

^  If  we  take  in  order  the  narrative  of  Josephus  it  supplies  the  follow- 
ing information.  Prior  to  the  Pas.sover  in  tlie  spring  of  a.  d.  65,  Cestius 
Gallus,  Prefect  of  Syria,  —  to  whom  the  Procurator,  Floras,  stood  in  the 
relation  of  a  subordinate, — came  to  Jerusalem.  (Josephus,  JVars,  2,14, 
3.)  Tlie  circum.stances  of  tlie  times  justify  the  supposition  that  he 
deemed  the  journey  re(pu.site  to  guard  against  an  outbreak.  After  what 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  brief  stay  he  returned  to  Antioch,  being  ac- 
companied to  Coesarea  by  Floras,  who  probably  visited  Jerusalem  on  the 
same  errand,  and  then  returned  to  liis  usual  residence.  "At  tliis  date," 
says  Josephus,  "the  Greeks  [that  is,  the  heathens]  of  Caesarea  being 
victorious  [over  the  Jews]  in  obtaining  from  Nero  the  government  of  the 
city,  brought  his  written  decision,  to,  ttjs  Kpiaews  ypdiJi.,aaTa,  and  the  war 
began.  .  .  .  But  the  pretext  for  it  was  not  proportionate  to  the  evils 
which  resulted  from  it.  For  the  Jews  in  Cresarea,  having  a  synagogue 
beyond  a  piece  of  ground  whose  owner  was  a  Caesarean  Greek,  made  re- 
peated and  earnest  efforts  to  buy  his  ground,  offering  a  price  many  times 
its  worth.  And  wlien  he,  neglecting  their  request,  commenced  as  an 
added  insult  to  build  on  the  ground,  erecting  workshops,  and  left  them 
but  a  narrow,  and  in  every  respect  contracted  access,  the  moie  impulsive 
of  the  young  men,  rushing  thitlier,  at  first  hindered  his  building  ;  but  as 
Floras  restrained  these  fi'om  violence,  the  leading  Jews,  in  tlieir  perplex- 
ity, with  the  assistance  of  John,  the  tax-gatherer,  ]iersuaded  Floras  with 
eight  silver  talents  to  stop  the  work.  But  he,  promising  to  do  all  things 
for  the  sake  (?)  of  getting  the  money,  after  he  had  received  it,  went  from 
C;esarea  to  Sebaste  and  left  the  insurrection  [to  act]  on  its  own  authority, 
as  if(?)  he  had  sold  to  the  Jews  an  impunity  to  tight  it  out."— Jose- 
phus, JFars,  2,  14,  4.  ProlialJy  money  M'as  placed  at  tlie  dis])osal  of 
Floras,  in  hopes  that  lie  could  buy  what  was  refused  to  the  Jews.  The 
rebellion  may  have  called  him  to  Sebaste. 

*  A  word  of  explanation  will  make  the  narrative  intelligible.  In  Le- 
viticus 14,  verses  4,  ."i,  we  are  told  that  a  leper  was  to  be  ))urified  with 
two  birds,  one  of  which  was  to  be  sacrificed  in  an  earthen  vessel.  Fur- 
ther, th(?  heathens  oyipo.sed  to  tlie  Jewish  account  of  theii-  miraculous 
deliverance;  from  Egypt,  a  .story  that  they  were  expellecl  by  tlie  Egyp- 
tians because  of  a  cutaneous  afi'ection.     (Josephus,  J  gainst  Apion,  1,25,  -JC; 


§^-] 


OUTLINE   OF   ITS    COURSE.  547 


body,  and  no  small  portion  of  the  quieter  citizens,  opposed  it. 
Floras  gave  the  conservatives  at  Jerusalem  such  military  aid 
as  they  asked, ^  and  subsequently,  in  their  interest  and  in  full 
understanding  with  the  chief  of  them,  Cestius  Callus,  gov- 
ernor of  S^'ria,  marched  a  Roman  legion,  in  the  autumn  of  G5, 
against  Jerusalem.*'  The  men  of  this  legion  had  been  re- 
cruited in  Syria,  where  Jewish  influence  was  strong,  and  had 
possibly  no  great  inclination  for  their  work,  from  which  they 
ran  away.'' 

2,  2  ;  Tacitus,  Hist.  5,  4.)  The  day  after  the  trouble  mentioned  in  the 
preceding  note  was  the  Sabbath,  and  when  the  Jews  were  assembled 
in  the  synagogue,  some  mischievous  wag  of  a  heathen,  wisliiiig  perhaps 
to  insinuate  that  they  were  a  scaly  set,  and  that  a  purification  was  called 
for  after  their  exi)ulsion  from  the  city  government,  inverted  an  earthen 
vessel  at  the  entrance  of  the  synagogue  and  sacrificed  birds.  The  con.se- 
quence  was  a  fight  between  the  more  excitable  Jews  and  such  of  the  Coesa- 
reans  as  defended  the  sacrifices  Jucundus,  the  Eoniaii  master  of  horse, 
who  had  been  appointed  to  keep  order,  ayijieared  on  the  ground,  took 
away  the  earthen  vessel,  and  endeavored  to  stop  the  commotion.  Ko 
allusion  is  made  by  Josephus  to  loss  of  life  or  personal  injury  sustained 
by  the  Jews,  but  he  says  that,  on  Jucundus  being  overcome  by  the  vio- 
lence of  the  Caesareans,  the  Jews  seizing  their  Laws  [books  of  the  Law] 
departed  to  Narbata,  seven  or  eight  miles  distant.  (Josephus,  Wars,  2, 
U,  5.) 

As  the  quieter  part  of  the  Jews  objected  to  the  fight,  and  as  a  large 
number  of  that  nation  were  massacred  at  Csesarea  .some  months  later,  we 
must  probalily  luider.stand  that  a  portion  only,  to  wit  the  re\olutinnary 
dispositioned,  had  left  the  city.  It  is  of  course  inqiossible  that  the  whole 
Jewish  population,  including  women  and  children,  could  at  an  houi's 
notice  remove  elsewhere.  As  Floras  reproached  their  envoys  for  carrying 
off  the  Laws  [books  of  the  Law],  it  is  probable  that  the  conservative  Jews 
of  Cfesarea,  equally  as  of  Jerusalem,  were  in  communication  with  him, 
and  that  the  conqjlaint  was  made  at  their  instance.  They  could  feel 
aggrieved  that  the  revolutionists,  by  appropriating  to  themselves  the 
Books  of  the  Law,  should  assume  tlie  appearance  of  being  the  true  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Cffisarean  Jews,  whereas  Floras,  aside  from  a  desire  of 
supporting  the  conservatives,  could  have  had  no  interest  in  their  Books. 

*  Josephus,   Wars,  2,  15,  (;. 

^  Agrippa  accompanied  Cestius  (Jose])hus,  Wars,  2,18,  ':),  and  "many 
of  the  principal  citizens  .  .  .  invited  Cestius  [to  enter]  with  the  under- 
standing that  they  should  open  the  gates."  —  Josephus,  Wars,  2,  19,  .". 
They  had,  at  an  earlier  date  (Josephus,  Wars,  2,  17,  ■<)  asked  Florus  aiid 
Agrippa  to  intervene  with  force.  In  the  Life  of  Josephus,  where  the 
presence  of  Cestius  in  this  attack  is  ignored,  that  writer  rejiresents  him- 
self (§  5)  and  others,  as  "hoping  that  before  long  Gessiiis  [Florus], 
coming  with  a  large  force,   would  stop  the  revolution." 

'  Josephus,  Wars,  2,  19,  o.  The  <late  of  tliis  defeat  is,  in  the  same 
passage,  stated  to  have  been  "the  eighth  day  of  the  month  of  Dius  [see 
note  34]  in  the  twelfth  year  of  Kero's  reign."  The  twelfth  legioTi 
which  suffered  this  defeat  was,  subsequently  to  the  war,  punished  by 


548  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   NERO.  [NOTE   I. 

After  this  failure,  the  consei-\'atives  seem  to  have  been 
thrown  for  a  year  on  their  own  resources,  or,  wliich  is  more 
probable,  to  have  obtained  from  the  Roman  government  per- 
mission to  put  down  the  revolt  in  their  own  way.  Compare 
note  31.  Their  authority  must,  to  some  extent,  have  been 
substituted  for  that  of  Florus  as  less  offensive  to  the  Jews. 
Agrippa  is  mentioned  (Josephus,  Life,  11)  as  displacing  a  gov- 
ernor of  Caesarea  and  substituting  another.  A  committee  of 
three  was  sent  from  Jerusalem  to  the  conservatives  of  Galilee. 
Josephus  was  at  this  time  acting  with  the  conservatives,  and 
was  a  member  of  this  committee.^  The  revolutionists,  before 
many  months,  bought  him  over  by  offering  him  command  of 
their  forces  in  Galilee.  In  his  Wars  he  carefully  suppresses 
this  conservative  effort  on  his  part,  and  gives  the  impression 
that,  immediately  after  the  retreat  of  the  Romans,  he  took 
command  of  revolutionary  foi'ces. 

The  change  of  sides  by  Josephus  must  have  been  in  the 
spring  or  summer  of  a.  d.  6G.^  After  this  change  he  super- 
intended for  some  months  a  guerilla  warfiire,  during  which 
his  followers  twice  attacked,  and  were  repulsed  from  Sepphoris, 
Josephus  being  among  the  first  to  run  away.^*^  Gessius  Florus, 
during  this  time,  seems  to  have  retained  his  authority,  but  to 
have  forborne  active  hostilities.-^-'  His  murder  took  place 
probably  in  the  autumn  of  66,  or  in  the  following  winter. ^^ 
The  only  men  to  whom  it  can  with  plausibility  be  attributed 
are  some  of  those  acting  under  Josephus.     Tlie  total  silence 


Titus,  who  sent  them  (Joseplius,  Wars:,  7,  1,  :?)  from  their  comfortable 
quarters  in  Syria  to  the  eontines  of  Armenia  and  Cappadocia.  It  deserves 
note,  that  Josephus  in  his  Life  (§§5-7)  totally  ignores  Cestius  as  com- 
mander, and  speaks  merely  of  Florus  as  attacking  Jerusalem  with  his 
own  forces. 

^  "  Gessius  having  been  defeated,  the  principal  men  of  Jerusalem  .  .  . 
sent  me  and  two  other  priests  to  persuade  the  evil-<lis])osed  [in  Galilee] 
to  lay  down  their  arms."  —  Josephus,  Life,  7.  Sepphoris,  the  chief  city 
of  Galilee,  throughout  the  war  remained  stoutly  conservative. 

^  Cultivation  of  the  ground  seems  to  have  been  going  on  when  Josephus 
assumed  command.     See  his  Wars,  2,  20,  8  ;  and  compare  2,  21,  2. 

w  Josephus,  Life,  15,  67. 

^1  Florus  held  hostages  from  some  Jewish  cities.  These  resided  at 
Dora  (Josephus,  Lfc,  8),  a  seaport  nine  miles  northward  from  Caesarea. 
He  received  a  visit  from  Agrippa  and  Berenice  (Josephus,  Life,  11)  at 
Berytus,  a  place  in  Syria  north  of  Sidon.  The  locality  renders  probable 
that  Cestius  Gallus  had  arranged  a  meeting  witli  them  there. 

1'^  The  statement  of  Suetonius  {Vr.spas.  4),  that  Florus  was  murdered, 
has  already  been  quoted  ;  see  Cli.  VIII.  note  184. 


§  n.]  CAUSES   OF  THE   REVOLT.  549 

of  that  writer  touching  the  fate  of  Florus  strengthens  the 
suspicion  that  he  had  personal  motives  for  ignoring  it. 

Vespasian  was  now  sent  by  Nero  to  put  down  the  insurrec- 
tion. He  arrived  early  in  67.  The  predatory  bands  under 
Josephus  dispersed  without  seeing  the  enemy,  or  attempting 
opposition/^  and  their  leader  escaped  to  Jotapata,  a  fortified 
place  farther  north.  Thereupon,  if  we  believe  Josephus, 
Vespasian,  after  four  days  spent  in  making  a  road,  marched 
to  Jotapata,^*  which  was  taken  in  forty-seven  days.^^  The 
tedious  nature  of  siege  operations  in  that  age  used  up  two, 
or  part  of  two,  consecutive  summers,  those,  namely,  of  67  and 
68,  in  the  capture  of  various  little  strongholds  outside  of 
Jerusalem. ^^  Then  the  death  of  Nero,  early  in  June,  68, 
opened  the  imperial  throne  to  rival  contestants  and  diverted 
Vespasian's  attention  from  the  war,  which  was  not  resumed 
until  A.  D.  70,  when  he  was  secure  of  imperial  power.  Titus 
then  attacked  and  took  Jerusalem.  The  siege  began  in  the 
spring  and  ended  in  the  summer.^' 

§  II.    Causes  of  the  Revolt. 

Josephus  gives  two  essentially  different  reasons  for  the 
revolt.  One  is  oppression  by  Florus.  The  incorrectness  of 
this  will  be  examined  in  the  next  section.     His  other  allega- 

1^  Josephus,   Wars,  3,  6,  3. 

1*  Vespasian  reached  Jotapata  on  "the  twenty-first  of  the  month  Ar- 
temisius,"  (Josephus,  Wars,  3,  7,  3),  that  is,  in  April. 

^*  Josephus,  JJ'rirs,  3,  7,  •'5.?.  This  capture  is  affirmed  by  Josephus, 
(  Wars,  3,  7,  oC.)  to  have  taken  place  on  the  first  of  the  month  Panenuis, 
which  would  be  some  time  in  May.  He  adds  that  it  was  in  "the  thir- 
teenth year  of  Nero."  This  may  be  a  transcriber's  error,  or  an  inten- 
tional falsehood  liy  Josephus,  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  the  time  — 
unaccounted  for  in  the  IFars  —  during  which  he  acted  as  a  conservative. 
The  capture  cannot  have  been  before  a.  d.  67,  which  was  Nero's  foui'- 
teentli  year.  Nero's  visit  to  Greece  began  in  the  latter  part  of  66,  and 
as  he  was  already  there  (Josephus,  Wars,  3, 1,  3)  when  he  sent  Vespasian 
to  take  command,  it  is  impossible  that  the  latter  could  in  the  spuing  of 
66  have  reached  his  destination.  At  that  date  he  had  not  even  started. 
Compare  note  44  and  the  prefixed  text.  The  capture  may  have  been 
in  68. 

16  "'VVitliiii  two  summers,  he  [Vespasian]  held,  with  a  vic'torious  army, 
all  the  camps  and  all  the  cities  except  Jerusalem."  —  Tacitus,  Hist.  5, 
10.     With  this,  the  detailed  narrative  of  Josephus  agrees. 

1^  The  Romans  encamjied  before  the  city  on  the  fourteenth  of  Xan- 
thicus  (Josephus,  Wars,  5,  1.3,  7)  and  took  it  on  the  eighth  of  Gorpi;vus 
(Josejihus,  Wars,  6,  10,  l),  months  which  correspond  nearly  with  March 
and  August. 


550  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   NERO.  [XOTE   I. 

tion  is,  that  the  Jews  were  prospering,  and  that  their  insur- 
rection was  owing  to  a  Messianic  excitemeut.^^  The  latter  of 
these  two  reasons  is  assigned  also  by  two  heathen  authors,^® 
and  accords  best  with  the  fact  that  simultaneous  disturbances 
broke  out  in  adjacent  countries.^^  A  Messianic  excitement, 
accompanied  as  usual  by  anti-Roman  feeling,  was  doubtless  a 
potent  agency  among  the  more  conscientious  revolutionists. 
Aside  from  these,  was  a  mixed  class  of  unprincipled  men  and 
of  those  who  mistook  their  excitability  for  religious  zeal,  or 
their  love  of  authority  for  patriotism.  The  insurrection  fell 
at  an  early  day  into  the  hands  of  this  mixed  class.^'  If  con- 
scientious persons  in  Judaea  retained  their  connection  with 
it  after  the  preliminary  disturbances,  and  into  the  period  of 
violence,  they  must  have  been  of  the  least  intelligent  kind,  or 

18  "What  especially  excited  them  [the  revolutionary  Jews]  to  the  war 
was  an  ambiguous  oracle  .  .  .  found  in  the  sacred  writings,  that  ^  at  that 
time  some  one  from  their  country  should  rule  the  world.'  This  they  un- 
derstood as  oiKeiou,  pertaining  to  their  own  people,  and  many  discreet 
persons  were  deceived  as  to  its  interpretation.  The  oracle  pointed  out 
the  rule  of  Vesi)asian,  he  having  been  declared  emperor  while  in  Judsea." 
—  Josephus,  JFars,  6,  5,  4.  An  earlier  statement  harmonizes  with 
this.  "  Eleazar,  son  of  Ananias,  the  high-priest,  a  bold  youth,  in  com- 
mand of  the  temple,  persuaded  those  who  ministered  in  its  service  to 
receive  no  gift  or  sacrifice  from  any  one  who  was  not  a  Jew.  Tliis  was 
the  beginning  of  the  war  against  the  Romans."  —  Josephus,  ITars,  2, 
17,  2.  The  last  statement  may  mean  that  prior  disturbances  could  be 
explained  as  aimed  only  against  the  local  authorities.  Tribute  to  the 
Romans  had,  however  (Josephus,  fVars,  2,  16,  :-,),  been  ])reviously  re- 
fused. The  conservatives  endeavored  fruitlessly  ( JFaj-s,  2,  17,  :!,  -l)  to 
stem  this  last  innovation. 

19  "  In  many  minds  a  conviction  existed,  that,  according  to  the  ancient 
writings  of  the  priests,  the  East  should  at  that  time  become  powerful, 
and  that  persons  from  Juiliea  should  acijuire  rule,  which  amljiguity  had 
predicted  Vespasian  and  Titus.  But  the  conmion  people,  as  is  custoniary 
with  human  cupidity,  interpreted  such  greatness  of  destiny  for  itself."  — 
Tacitus,  Hist.  5,  l:^  "Through  the  whole  East  an  ancient  and  unin- 
terrupted opinion  had  gained  thorough  cui'rency,  as  contained  in  the 
fates,  that  at  that  time  persons  from  Judaia  should  obtain  rule.  .  .  .  The 
Jews,  appropriating  it  to  themselves,  had  rebelled."  —  Suetou.  Vcs- 
pas.   4. 

20  Josephus,   Wars,  2,  18,  1-n. 

21  An  early  operation  was  to  burn  the  public  records  (Jose])hus,  Wars, 
2,  17,  o),  .so  as  to  destroy  the  evidences  of  debt.  The  small  band  of 
Roman  soldiers,  who  were  then  in  the  city,  surrendered  after  a  jironiise 
of  personal  safety,  which  promise  was  only  kept  until  they  had  laid  down 
their  arms  (Josejihus,  ircrs,  2,  17,  lo),  when  they  were  murdered.  The 
palaces  of  Agrippa  and  Berenice  were  also  burnt  at  the  same  time  as  the 
})ublic  records.  And  yet  this  class  of  miscreants  employed  teachers  to 
persuade  the  people  ( Wars,  6,  5,  •;)  that  God  would  be  their  deliverer. 


§  m.] 


FLORUS.  551 


else  from  among  those  impatient  ones  who  had  become  so 
irritated  by  the  woi'ldliuess  or  harsh  deaUng  of  the  conserva- 
tives, as  to  mistake  antagonism  to  them  ^"  for  service  towards 
God.  Ontside  of  Jndica  the  movement  may  have  continued 
to  receive  sympathy  from  many  who  were  ignorant  of  its 
management,  and  deemed  it  the  cause  of  God. 

Jerusalem  had  concentrated  many  of  the  selfish  and  un- 
scrupulous. The  stream  of  offerings  to  the  temple  must  have 
been  a  strong  temptation  to  the  money-loving.^ 

§    III.      Fl07'US. 

Josephus  charges  Florus  with  bringing  on  the  war  by  his 
oppression  and  with  wishing  to  bring  it  on.^*  If  so,  his  mis- 
deeds must  have  preceded  its  outbreak.  It  cannot  have 
been  owing  to  events  which  transpired  afterwards.  Jo- 
sephus, however,  does  not  specify  one  misdeed  of  Florus  prior 
to  the  war's  commencement.  His  charges  of  subsequent  in- 
tentional wrong-doing  wear  a  malevolent  look.  He  mentions 
but  two  instances  of  pecuniary  rapacity,  which  are  placed  in 
proximity,  for  the  apparent  purpose  of  strengthening  each 
other.^     Neither  will  bear  scrutiny.     It  is  a  strong,  indirect 

^  The  Jewish  aristocracy  held,  at  first,  the  upper  part  of  the  city 
(Josephus,  JFars,  2,  17,  .'i),  otherwise  called  Mount  Sion,  while  the  revo- 
lutionists held  the  lower  city  and  temple.  The  latter  caught  the  high- 
priest  Ananias  (Josephus,   JFars,  2,  17,  '-i)  and  murdered  him. 

23  In  a  speech  which  Josephus  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Titus  ( IVai's, 
6,  6,  2),  the  Jews  are  told  that  their  permission  to  collect  tribute  every- 
where had  enabled  them  to  use  money  collected  from  the  Romans  in 
preparing  war  against  them.  In  the  beginning  of  the  war  Florus  re- 
moved seventeen  talents  from  the  temple  (Josephus,  Wars,  2,  14,  C), 
much  to  the  annoyance  of  the  revolutionists,  who  had  been  calculating, 
no  doubt,  on  using  it  for  their  own  purposes.  A  plentiful  pecuniary 
bait,  habitually  spread  out,  must  have  collected  the  unprincipled  around 
it,  even  if  it  drew  such  men  from  the  city  alone.  But  Jerusalem  was 
accustomed  (Josephus,  Wars,  4,  3,  .'5)  to  admit  from  all  quarters  persons 
of  Jewish  descent.  Rogues,  even  from  a  distance,  would  soon  discern 
the  advantages  of  a  situation,  where,  under  the  appearance  of  zeal  for 
religion,  they  could  consult  their  own  interest.     Compare  p.  33. 

'^^  Josephus,  Antiq.  20,  11,  1  ;    Wars,  2,  14,  3  ;  2,  15,  .'5 ;  2,  16,  1. 

^  Josephus,  Wars,  2,  14,  .'i,  0.  The  two  instances  have  been  already 
mentioned.  One  was  the  acceptance  of  monej'  (see  note  3),  probabl}' 
in  trust  for  a  good  object,  namely,  to  buy  a  piece  of  ground  for  the  Jews. 
This  object  at  least  is  so  obvious  as  to  render  improbable  the  twofold 
allegation  of  Josephus,  that  the  principal  Jewish  citizens  offered,  and 
Florus  accepted,  money  for  an  object  which  both  he  and  they  knew  that 
he  had  no  power  to  effect,  namely,  to  prevent  a  man  from  building  on 


552         JEWISH  REVOLT  UNDER  NERO.      [NOTE  I. 

testimony  to  the  honesty  of  Floras,  that  his  bitter  enemy  can 
allege  nothing  worse.  Some  of  his  conduct  implies  an  indis- 
position to  use  harsh  measures.-^  If  there  be  an  instance  of 
the  reverse,  it  was  due  doubtless,  in  large  measure,  to  the 
Jewish  aristocracy.^''  A  fact  also  which,  in  this  connection, 
deserves  consideration,  is  that  in  Csesarea,  where  Florus  re- 
sided, the  majority  of  the  population  was  Gentile,  and  yet 
the  city  government  before  the  war  was  in  Jewish  hands ;  nor 
does  Josephus  allege  tliat  Florus  had  even  the  slightest  con- 
nection with  its  transfer  to  Gentiles.  This  certainly  does  not 
look  like  oppression. 


his  own  land.  The  second  instance  (see  note  23)  was  the  removal  of 
money  from  the  temple.  It  was  doubtless  done  at  the  instance  of  the 
conservative  Jews,  who  must  have  been  urgent  to  jirevent  this  money 
from  being  used  by  the  revolutionists.  E^'en  without  such  prompting, 
Florus  would  have  been  inexcusably  negligent  had  he  left  the  money  in 
a  locality  which  was  controlled  by  the  insurgents.  In  another  passage 
{Wars,  2,  15,  (i)  Josephus  treats  the  monej'  as  still  in  the  temple. 

26  After  the  insurgents  had  already  seized  the  tower  of  Antonia  as  well 
as  the  temple,  the  former  of  which  implies  an  expulsion  of  the  Roman 
garrison,  Florus  marched  some  troops  to  Jerusalem.  These  were  met  not 
merely  by  the  peaceably  disposed  Jews,  who  (compare  note  6)  were,  as 
afterwards,  thankful  for  such  interference,  but  by  bands  of  revolutionists, 
whose  subsequent  action  .shows  them  to  have  been  armed,  and  who  in- 
sulted the  soldiers.  The  soldiers  made  no  answer,  and,  when  force  was 
called  for,  used  only  the  butts  of  their  weapons  ;  see  Josephus  (  Wars,  2, 
15,  3  -•'>),  where  this  forbearing  behavior  of  the  soldiers  is  studiously  mis- 
represented. Immediately  afterwards  Florus  left  it  to  the  higli-priests 
and  sanhedrim  to  say  what  number  of  troops  they  wished,  and  substi- 
tuted for  this  band  of  soldiers  another  which  had  not  come  into  collision 
with  tlie  people. 

2^  Josephus  says  (TFars,  2,  15,  1  ;  Life,  4,  r>)  that  the  soldiery  at 
Jerusalem  behaved  lawlessly,  and  that  Berenice,  then  on  a  visit  to  Jeru- 
salem (which,  it  must  be  i'enieml>ered,  was  not  in  her  brother's  king- 
dom, nor  in  anywise  lurder  his  control),  asked  Florus  to  stop  "the 
murder."  As  Josephus  does  not  previously  specify  any  murder  by  the 
soldiers,  we  are  left  to  conjecture  concerning  its  nature  and  extent.  It 
may  have  been  unavoidable  violence  in  repressing  sedition,  or  the  sol- 
diery may  have  committed  some  excess,  or  the  Jewish  aristocracy,  whose 
counsel  Florus  seems  to  have  taken,  may  have  advocated  harshness.  An 
impression  which  Josephus  {Tbid.)  stiives  to  convey,  that  Berenice  in 
the  presence  of  Florus,  and  through  his  neglect,  was  in  danger  from  his 
soldiery,  must  be  a  misreprescnt.ation.  She  accompanied  her  brother 
suKsequently  on  a  visit  to  Florus,  and  was  probably  in  much  more 
danger  from  the  Jewish  insurgents  than  from  Roman  soldiers  ;  see  notes 
11,  21,  and  45. 


§  IV.] 


JOSEPHUS. 


i>b6 


§  IV.    Josephus. 

The  picture  of  Josephus,  as  supplied  by  his  writings,  is  very 
unfavorable.  Self-laudation  is  in  some  persons  connected  with 
general  honesty  or  benevolence.  In  his  case  it  existed  extrav- 
agantly, but  stood  in  connection  with  dishonesty  and  brutal- 
ity.^ The  latter  quality  does  not  aftect  his  general  credibil- 
ity, but  the  former  does.  What  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the 
truthful  intention  of  a  writer  who  gives  us  such  statements  as 
those  in  the  note,^  concerning  the  political  leanings  of  Sep- 
phoris,  or  the  character  and  statesmanship  of  Ananus,^"  or 
the  question  whether  Josephus  had  a  battle  with  Vespasian,^^ 


^  When  some  of  liis  enemies  were  before  his  house  (Josephus,  Life, 
30),  he  invited  one  of  them  in  u))on  a  false  pretence,  cut  his  hand  off, 
tied  it  round  his  neck  and  put  him  out.  The  connection  illustrates  the 
reckless  exaggeration  of  the  writer.  He  states  the  force  outside  at  six 
hundred,  and  winds  up  by  saying  that  his  boldness  made  them  think 
that  he  had  a  larger  force  inside.  A  Galilean  dwelling  would  have  had 
scant  room  for  fifty  or  a  hundred  men. 


"  Sepphoris  shut  me  out  of  the  city 
and  forbade  any  one  of  its  citizens  to 
enlist  with  the  Jews,  and  for  security 
against  us,  they  outwitted  me  by  be- 
ing  beforehand  with  their  strentrfhen- 
int;  of  the  city  by  walls  and  from  Ces- 
tius  Gallus  .  .  .  they  gladly  received 
a  guard,  despising  my  then  great 
power."  —  Life,  65. 


29  Josephus,  "knowing  that  the 
Romans  would  attack  Galilee,  walled 
suitable  localities.  .  .  .  To  the  inhab- 
itants of  Sepphoris  only  he  gave  per- 
mission to  rebuild  their  wall  them- 
selves, as  he  saw  that  they  were 
wealthy  and  prompt  for  the  war  witii- 
out  command  [from  any  one  else.] 
In  like  manner  .John,  the  son  of  Levi, 
by  himself  (.losephus  ordering)  put  a 
wall  round  Gischala."  —  Wars,  2,  20, 
6.  Cp.  {Wars,  3,  4,  1.)  "The  city 
(Sepphoris)  .  .  .  which  ...  he  (Jo- 
sephus) had  walled." 

The  truth  concerning  John  is,  that  he  was  in  the  employ  of  the  con- 
servative party  {JVars,  4,  3,  13),  whom  he  had  not,  like  Josephus,  be- 
trayed. The  charges  of  Josephus  {Wars,  4,  3,  IJ),  that  John  played  false 
with  the  conservatives,  may  be  owing  to  personal  enmity,  and  to  his 
having  obtained  the  upper  hand  of  Josephus  {Life,  13),  when  the  latter 
went  over  to  the  revolutionists. 


3"  "  Ananus,  a  most  discreet  man, 
and  one  likely  to  have  saved  the  city 
had  he  escaped  the  hands  of  the  con- 
spirators." —  Trff?-s,  4,  .3,  7. 

31  "  Vespasian  with  his  force  came 
to  the  borders  of  Galilee.  .  .  .  Those 
in  camp  with  Josephus,  not  far  from 
Sepphoris  by  a  city  called  Garis,  when 
they  heard  that  the  war  was  coming 


"  Amnus  and  his  associates  being 
CORRUPTED  BY  GIFTS,  agreed  among 
themselves  to  put  me  out  of  Galilee." 
—  Life,  39. 

"  Concerning  which  [coming  of  Ves- 
pasian into  Galilee],  how  it  occurred, 
and  how  he  fought  his  first  battle 
AGAINST  ME,  near  the  village  of  Tari- 
cheK  ...  I  have  narrated  accurately 


554         JEWISH  REVOLT  UNDER  NERO,      [NOTE  I. 

or  how  the  people  of  Galilee  were  affected  towards  him*?^^ 
What  fidelity  towards  his  readers  can  be  expected  from  a 
writer  who  parades  his  lack  of  fidelity  to  men  that  had  relied 
on  his  assurances  1^  When  he  treats  subjects  which  pre- 
sented no  motive  for  misstatement  we  can,  to  a  reasonable 
degree,  trust  him.  Even  from  his  attempted  falsifications  we 
can,  by  careful  sifting,  eliminate  much  truth.  His  works  are, 
on  some  points,  our  only  sources  of  information.  They  need 
a  better  translation,  cross-references,  intelligently  written 
notes,  and  a  much  better  index  than  Whiston's.  A  table  of 
the  Macedonian  months  used  by  Josephus  should  also  be  sup- 
plied.^* 

near,  and  that  the  Romans  were  barely     in  the   Books  of  the  Jewish   War." 

not  yet  in  it,  scattered  in  flight,  not    — Life,  74. 

only  before  a  battle,  but  before  seeing; 

the  enemies.     Josephus  was  left  witli 

a  few  .  .  .  taking  those  who  remained 

lie   fled   down  to  Tiberias." — Wars, 

3,  6,  3. 

8^  "'Josephus,  by  flying  to  the  city  "Such  was  the  good-will  and  fidel- 
which  he  had  selected  for  safety,  filled  ity  of  most  Galileans  towards  myself 
it  with  fear;  ...  he  anticipated  [Ves-  tliat  .  .  .  they  bestowed  less  lamen- 
pasian]  by  getting  into  Jotapata  from  tation  on  their  own  misfortunes  than 
Tiberias."  —  Wars,  3,  7,  2,3.  solicitude  on  [effecting]  my  safety." 

—  Life,  16, 

^  "  Being  desirous  to  catch  Simon  by  a  wile,  and  Joazar  with  him,  I 
sent  a  message  to  them,  and  desired  them  to  come  a  little  way  out  of  the 
city,  with  many  of  their  friends  to  guard  them  ;  for  I  said  I  would  come 
down  to  them,  and  make  a  league  with  them,  and  divide  the  government 
of  Galilee  with  them.  Accordingly  Simon  was  deluded  on  account  of  his 
imprudence,  and  out  of  the  hopes  of  gain,  and  did  not  delay  to  come  ; 
but  Joazar,  suspecting  snares  were  laid  for  him,  stayed  behind.  So  when 
Simon  was  come  out,  and  his  friends  with  him  for  his  guard,  I  met  him, 
and  saluted  him  with  gn^at  civility,  and  professed  that  1  was  obliged  to 
him  for  his  coming  up  to  me  :  but  a  little  while  afterward  I  walked  along 
with  him,  as  though  I  would  say  something  to  him  by  himself,  and, 
when  \  had  drawn  him  a  good  way  from  his  friends,  I  took  him  about 
the  middle,  and  gave  him  to  my  friends  that  were  with  me,  to  carry  him 
into  a  village ;  and,  commanding  my  armed  men  to  come  down,  I  with 
them  made  an  assault  upon  Tiberias."  —  Josephus,  Life,  63,  Whiston's 
trans. 

**  The  Macedonian  months  must  originally  have  been  lunar  ones. 
When  the  Ephesians  adopted  Macedonian  names  (Smith's  Did.  of  Antiq. 
p.  225)  they  may  have  applied  them  to  solar  months.  If  their  first 
month,  Diua,  began  September  24  (Smith,  Ibid.),  it  must  have  been  in- 
tended to  date  from  the  Etjuinox,  irrespective  of  the  moon.  Josephus 
{Antiq.  1,  3,  :!)  identifies  Xantliicus  with  the  Hebrew  Nisn.n,  and  says 
{Ibid.)  that  Diua  corresjionded  to  the  second  of  the  Hebrew  [civil] 
months.  To  aid  others,  the  following,  ])erhaps  incomplete,  table  of  ref- 
erences to  the.se  months  by  Josephus  in  his  iFars  is  added.     Their  nuni- 


§iv.] 


josEPHUs.  555 


The  narratives  of  Josephus  pertain,  aside  from  matters  at 
Jerusalem,  chiefly  to  the  war,  if  it  can  be  dignified  with  that 
name,  in  Gahlee.  Occasionally  a  passage  seems  to  vie  with 
the  famous  JMunchausen,^^  while  others,  intended  to  conceal 


bering    represents 

1    the   Macedonian 

order. 

Each    month    ( 

corresponds 

mainly  with  the 

successor 

of  the  n 

lodern  one  in  which  it  begins. 

No.    Name. 

Began  in  j 

i.D. 

63  or  64 

.   A.D.  65. 

A.  D.  67. 

A.  D. 

68. 

A.  D.  70. 

5.  Dystvus 

J((n. 

4,7, 

,  3 

t).  Xanthicus 

Feb. 

6, 

5,  3 

5,  22,  7 

7.  Artemisius 

3Iarch 

6, 

5,  3 

2,14,4 
2, 15,  2 

3,    7,    3 

5,  IM 

8.  Daesius 

A2n'il 

3,    7,  29 
31 

4,8, 

1 

9.  Panemus 

May 

32 
3,    7,  36 

5, 13,  7 
6,  1,  (i 
6,    2,  1 

10.  Lous 

June 

2,17,7 

6,    4,5 

6,    8,  1 

11.  Gorpioeus 

July 

2, 17,  S 

3,  10,  10 

4,  1,  10 

6,  8,  4 
6, 10,  1 

12.  Hyperberetffius  Aug. 

4,     1,    9 

4,   1,  10 

1.  Dius 

Sept. 

2, 19,  9 

A.  D.  69. 

2.  Apellffius 

Oct. 

4,11, 

,  1 

3.  Audynseus 

Nov. 

4.  Peritius 

Dec. 

Classical  scholars  will  notice  that  Josephus  in  his  Wars,  6,  4,  5, 
arranges  the  month  Lous  in  the  same  position  as  does  Plutarch,  whose 
accuracy  (Smith,  Diet,  of  Anf.iq.  p.  225)  has  been  questioned. 

^  "As  for  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Tiberias,  they  wrote  to  the 
king,  and  desired  him  to  send  them  forces  sufficient  to  l)e  a  guard  to  their 
country.  .  .  .  Some  Eoman  horsemen  were  discovered  on  tlieir  march, 
not  far  from  the  city,  which  made  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  forces  were 
come  from  the  king  ;  upon  which  they  shouted,  and  lifted  up  their  voices 
in  commendations  of  the  king,  and  in  reproaches  against  me.  Hereupon 
one  came  running  to  me,  and  told  me  what  their  dispositions  were,  and 
that  they  had  resolved  to  revolt  from  me ;  upon  hearing  which  news  I 
was  verj'^  much  alarmed ;  for  I  had  already  sent  away  my  armed  men 
FROM  Tariche^  to  THEIR  OWN  HOMES,  because  the  next  day  was  our 
sabbath ;  .  .  .  I  immediately  jilaced  those  my  friends  of  Tarichese,  on 
whom  I  could  best  confide,  at  the  gates,  to  watch  those  very  carefully 
who  went  out  at  those  gates :  1  also  called  to  me  the  heads  of  families, 
and  hid  every  one  of  them  to  seize  upon  a  ship,  to  go  on  board  it,  and  to 
take  a  master  with  them,  and  follow  him  to  the  city  of  Tiberias.  I  also 
myself  went  on  board  one  of  those  ships,  with  my  friends,  and  the  seven 
armed  men  already  mentioned,  and  sailed  for  Tiberias. 

"But  now  when  the  people  of  Tiberias  perceived  that  there  were  no 
forces  come  from  the  king,  and  yet  saw  the  whole  lake  full  of  ships,  they 
were  in  fear  what  would  become  of  their  city,  and  were  greatly  terrified, 


556  JEWISH   REVOLT   UNDER   KERO.  [NOTE  I. 

his  reverses  or  misbehavior,  assume,  to  an  equal  degree,  gulli- 


as  su]ipo.sing  that  the  ships  were  full  of  men  on  board ;  so  they  then 
changed  their  minds,  and  threw  down  their  weapons,  and  met  me  with 
their  wives  and  children,  and  made  acclamations  to  me,  with  great  com- 
mendations ;  for  they  imagined  that  I  did  not  know  their  former  inclina- 
tions [to  have  been  against  me] ;  so  they  persuaded  me  to  sjiare  the  citj\ 
But  when  1  was  come  near  enough,  I  gave  order  to  the  masters  of  the 
ships  to  cast  anchor  a  good  way  off  the  land,  that  the  jjcople  of  Tiberia.' 
might  not  ])erceive  that  the  ships  had  no  men  on  board ;  but  I  Men\. 
nearer  to  the  peo})le  in  one  of  the  ships,  and  rebuked  them  for  their  folly, 
and  that  they  were  so  fickle  as,  without  any  just  occasion  in  the  world, 
to  revolt  from  their  fidelity  to  me.  However,  1  assured  them,  that  I 
■would  entirely  forgive  them  for  the  time  to  come,  if  they  would  send  ten 
of  the  ringleaders  of  the  multitude  to  me:  and  when  they  complied 
readily  with  this  proposal,  and  sent  me  the  men  forementioned,  I  put 
them  on  board  the  ship,  and  sent  them  away  to  Tarichere,  and  ordered 
them  to  he  kept  in  prison. 

"And  by  this  stratagem  it  was,  that  I  gradually  got  all  the  Senate 
of  Tiberias  into  my  power,  and  sent  them  to  the  city  forementioned, 
with  many  of  the  principal  men  among  the  populace,  and  those  kot 
FEWER  in  number  than  the  other.  But  when  the  multitude  saw  into 
what  great  miseries  they  had  brought  themselves,  they  desired  me  to 
punish  the  author  of  this  sedition  :  his  name  was  Clitns,  a  young  man, 
tjold  and  rash  in  his  undertakings.  Now  since  I  thought  it  not  agree- 
able to  piety  to  put  one  of  my  own  peoide  to  death,  and  yet  found  it 
necessary  to  punish  him,  I  ordered  Levi,  one  of  my  own  guards,  to  go  to 
him,  and  cut  off  one  of  Clitus's  hands  ;  but  as  he  that  was  ordered  to  do 
this  was  afraid  to  go  out  of  the  ship  alone,  among  so  great  a  multitude, 
I  was  not  willing  that  the  timorousness  of  the  soldiers  should  appear  to 
the  people  of  Tiberias.  So  1  called  to  Clitus  himself,  and  said  to  him, 
'  Since  thou  deservest  to  lose  both  thine  hands  for  thy  ingratitude  to  me, 
be  thou  thy  own  executioner,  lest,  if  thou  refusest  so  to  be,  thou  undergo 
a  Avorse  punishment.'  And,  when  he  earnestly  begged  of  me  to  spare 
him  one  of  his  hands,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  1  granted  it.  So  in 
order  to  prevent  the  loss  of  both  his  hands,  he  willingly  took  his  sword, 
and  cut  off  his  own  left  hand  ;  and  this  put  an  end  to  the  sedition."  — 
Josephus,  L-ifc,  32-34,  Winston's  trans.  In  the  JFars,  Josephus 
says  concerning  the  foregoing  operations  :  "Under  one  new  pretence  or 
another,  he  called  forth  others,  one  after  another,  to  make  the  leagues 
BETWEEN  THEM.  He  then  gave  order  to  the  masters  of  those  vessels 
which  he  had  thus  filled,  to  sail  away  immediately  for  Tarichere,  and  to 
confine  those  men  in  the  prison  there  till  at  length  he  took  all  their 
senate,  consisting  of  six  hundred  persons,  and  about  two  thousand  of 
the  populace,  and  carried  them  away  to  Taricheae."—  JFms,  2,  21,  0, 
Whiston's  trans. 

Twenty-six  hundred  prisoners  —  even  at  the  allowance  of  ten  for  each 
boat,  a  number  sufficient  to  have  pitched  out  the  rowers  and  taken  pos- 
.session  —  would  have  rcriuired  two  hundred  and  sixty  boats.  As  these 
had  been  placed  in  the  distance,  so  as  to  conceal  their  emptiness,  fifteen 
minutes  would  at  least  be  required  for  each  to  attain  the  shore,  take  its 
load,  and  depart.     At  this,  somewhat  expeditious,  rate  the  transfer  of 


§  IV.] 


josEPHUS.  557 


bility  in  his  readers.^®  Exaggeration  of  numbers  is  frequent 
in  ancient  writers,  and  is  a  fault  common  to  uncritical  minds. 
But  in  Josephus  it  is  not  merely  excessive,  it  is  unquestion- 
ably wilful. ^^     Should  we   wish  to  determine  in  how  f\ir  his 

twenty-six  hundred  persons  would  have  required  sixty-five  hours,  or 
nearly  three  days  and  nights,  during  which  the  multitude  must  have 
stood  on  the  shore  and  Josephus  in  his  boat. 

^  When  Josephus  undertook  with  his  marauders  to  plunder  Sepphoris, 
some  one  of  its  inhabitants  must  have  frightened  them  by  calling  out 
that  the  Eonians  were  come.  Josejihus  was  the  first  to  run.  His  narra- 
tive is  :  "The  people  of  Sepphoris  grew  insolent,  and  took  up  arms,  out 
of  a  confidence  they  had  in  the  strength  of  their  walls,  and  because  they 
saw  me  engaged  in  other  afiairs  also.  So  they  sent  to  Cestius  Gallus, 
who  was  president  of  Syria,  and  desired  that  he  would  either  come 
quickly  to  them,  and  take  their  city  under  his  protection,  or  send  them 
a  garrison.  .  .  .  The  Galileans  took  this  opportunity,  as  thinking  they 
had  now  a  proper  time  for  showing  their  hatred  to  them,  since  they  bore 
ill-will  to  that  city  also.  They  then  exerted  themselves,  as  if  they  would 
destroy  theni  all  utterly,  with  those  that  sojourned  there  also.  So  they 
ran  upon  them,  and  set  their  houses  on  fire,  as  finding  them  without  in- 
habitants ;  for  the  men  out  of  fear  ran  together  to  tlie  citadel.  So  the 
Galileans  carried  off  everything,  and  omitted  no  kind  of  desolation  which 
they  could  bring  upon  their  countrymen.  When  I  saw  this,  ...  1  bid 
those  my  friends,  who  were  most  faithful  to  me,  and  were  about  me,  to 
give  out  reports,  as  if  the  Romans  were  falling  upon  the  other  jiart  of 
the  city  with  a  great  army  ;  and  this  I  did,  that  by  such  a  rejiort's  being 
spread  abroad,  I  might  restrain  the  violence  of  the  Galileans,  and  pre- 
serve the  city  of  Sepphoris.  And  at  length  this  stratagem  had  its  effect ; 
for  upon  hearing  the  report,  they  were  in  fear  for  themselves,  and  so 
they  left  off  plundering,  and  ran  away  ;  and  this  more  especially  because 
they  saw  me,  their  general,  do  the  same  also." — Josephus,  Life,  67, 
Whiston's  trans.     Compare  §  11. 

^^  According  to  a  census  of  London  just  taken  (see  Pittsburgh  Commer- 
cial, May  30,  1871)  its  size  is  74,070  acres,  and  its  population  3,250,000. 
This  would  give  an  average  of  nearly  forty-four  persons  per  acre.  Jerusalem 
covered  about  four  hundred  acres  within  its  walls.  Its  two-story  houses 
could  not  accommodate  so  many  as  the  higher  edifices  of  London,  and  its 
aristocratic  quarter  cannot  have  been  densely  built,  for  the  palaces  of 
Agrippa  and  Berenice  were  burnt  (Josephus,  Wars,  2,  17,  f'O  without,  as 
it  seems,  causing  a  conflagration  in  adjoining  buildings,  and  the  view  of 
the  temple  from  the  dining-room  of  the  former  must  (Josephus,  Antiq. 
20,  8,  11)  have  been  unobstructed  by  buildings..  Allowing  it,  however, 
an  average  of  forty-four  per  acre,  its  population  would  be  17,600. 
Josephus  states  the  number  who  perished  in  Jerusalem  during  its  siege 
at  1,100,000  {Wars,  6,  9,  3),  besides  97,000  captives,  and  wishes  us  to 
believe  {Ibid.)  that  on  a  prior  occasion  2,700,200  ate  the  passover  in 
Jerusalem,  aside  from  the  multitude  of  ceremonially  unclean  who  could 
not  partake.  Such  numbers  are  simply  absurd.  The  military  force 
under  Josephus  is  by  himself  ( /ra/'s,  2,  20,  (;)  stated  at  100,000.  The 
tenor  of  his  narrative  creates  an  impression  that  it  never  exceeded  1,000, 
and  frequently  consisted  of  but  one  or  two  dozen  ;  see  his  Life,  §§  17, 
18,  28,  29,  56-59. 


558  JEWISH   EEVOLT   UNDER   NERO.  [XOTE   I. 

doings  are  palliated  by  any  strong  current  of  anti-Roman  feel- 
ing among  his  coutitrymen,  it  is  worthy  of  consideration,  that 
not  only  were  such  chief  cities  as  Sepphoris  and  Tiberias  con- 
servative, but  even  at  Tarichese,  four  miles  from  Tiberias,  a 
village  where  Josephus  made  his  headquarters,  the  native  pop- 
ulation were  opposed  to  the  war,  and  were  overridden  solely 
by  refuse  foreigners.^  Josephus  must  have  had  for  compan- 
ions simply,  or  chiefly,  the  refuse  of  distant  localities. 

Like  many  destitute  of  morality,  Josephus  stoutly  advo- 
cated forms  and  ceremonies  which  had  been  connected  with, 
or  substituted  for,  religion.^      His  revolutionary  associates, 


^  "All  the  innovators  had  gotten  together  at  Tarichese,  as  relying 
upon  the  strength  of  the  city,  and  on  the  lake  that  lay  by  it.  This  lake 
is  called  by  the  people  of  the  country  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth.  .  .  .  The 
inhabitants  themselves,  who  had  possessions  there,  and  to  whom  the 
city  belonged,  were  not  disposed  to  tight  from  the  very  beginning  ;  and 
now  the  less  so,  because  they  had  been  beaten  ;  but  the  foreigners  which 
were  very  numerous  would  ibrce  them  to  fight  so  much  the  more,  inso- 
much that  there  was  a  clamor  and  a  tumult  among  them,  as  all  nmtually 
angry  one  at  another.  .  .  .  After  this  fight  was  over,  Vespasian  sat  upou 
his  tribunal  at  Tarichese,  in  order  to  distinguish  the  foreigners  from  the 
old  inhabitants;  for  these  foreigners  appeared  to  have  begun  the  war."  — 
Josephus,  IVars,  3,  10,  l,  4,  10.  In  his  Life,  §  32,  Josephus  says  : 
"If  1  had  given  commission  to  the  people  of  Taricheee,  and  to  the  for- 
ElGNEiis  among  them  to  plunder  the  city  [of  Tiberias],  I  saw  that  they 
would  not  be  able." 

89  "Now  as  many  of  the  Levites,  which  is  a  tribe  of  ours,  as  were 
singers  of  hymns,  persuaded  the  king  to  assemble  a  sanhedrim,  and  to 
give  them  leave  to  wear  linen  garments,  as  well  as  the  priests  ;  for  they 
said,  that  this  would  be  a  work  worthy  tlie  times  of  his  government, 
that  he  might  have  a  memorial  of  sucli  a  novelty,  as  being  his  doing. 
Nor  did  they  fail  of  obtaining  their  desire  ;  for  the  king,  with  tlie  suf- 
frages of  those  that  came  into  the  sanhedrim,  granted  tlie  singers  of 
hymns  this  privilege,  that  they  might  lay  aside  their  former  garments, 
and  wear  such  a  linen  one  as  they  desired  ;  and  as  a  part  of  this  tribute 
ministered  in  the  temple,  he  also  permitted  them  to  learn  those  hymns 
as  they  had  besought  him  for.  Now  all  this  was  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  our  country,  wliich,  whenever  they  had  been  transgressed,  we  have 
NEVEi;  r,F.i",x  AF.i.i';  to  avoid    the  punislimcnt  of  such    transgressing." 

—  Josephus,  xlnliq.  20,  9,  c,  "Winston's  trans.  "As  for  the  dead 
bodies  of  tlie  people,  their  relations  carried  them  out  to  their  own 
houses  ;  but  when  any  of  tlie  zealots  were  wounded,  he  went  up  into  the 
temple,  and  defiled  that  sacred  floor  with  his  blood,  insomuch, 
that  one  may  saj',  it  was  their  blood  alone  that  polluted  our  sanctuaiy." 

—  Wars,  4,  3,  l-.',  Winston's  trans.  "Josephus  stood  in  such  a  jilace 
where  he  miglit  be  heard,  not  by  John  only,  V)ut  l)v  many  more.  .  .  . 
Josephus  said  thus,  with  a  loud  voice,  .  .  .  'Vile  wretch  tliat  thou  art! 
if  any  one  should  deprive  thee  of  thy  daily  food,  tliou  wouhlst  estecni 
him  to  be  an  enemy  to  thee  ;  but  thou  hopest  to  have  that  God  fur  thy 


§  IV.] 


josEPHUS.  559 


however,  saw  through  him,  and  placed  little  trust  in  hia 
fidelity.^''  His  prediction  of  imperial  power  for  Vespasian 
may  have  been  merely  a  salutation,  or  addi'ess  to  him  as  Im- 
perator,  the  former  title  of  a  general,  rather  than  of  emperor.*^ 
If  he  addressed  Vespasian  as  Caesar,  the  salutation  could 
readily  be  accounted  for  after  Nero's  death  in  68,  since  Ves- 
pasian then  took  pleasure  in  being  so  saluted  ;^"^  but  before 
that  time  it  would  have  been  very  unlikely.  If  it  took  place 
in  68,  it  would  render  probable  that  Josephus  has  misplaced 
the  siege  of  Jotapata  from  the  end  to  the  beginning  of  Ves- 
pasian's operations  in  Galilee,  in  order  either  to  increase  his 
own  importance  as  the  first  enemy  who  needed  attention,  or 
that  his  prediction  m.ight  seem  not  to  have  been  prompted  by 
existing  circumstances  and  common  conversation.^"      A  cir- 

supporter  in  this  war,  whom  thou  hast  deprived  of  his  everlasting  wor- 
ship.'"—  JFais,  6,  2,  1,  Whiston's  trans.  The  allusion  is  to  the  daily 
sacrifice,  which  had  been  stopped  for  want  of  victims. 

*''  "Kovv  when  all  Galilee  was  filled  with  this  rumor,  that  their  coun- 
try was  about  to  be  betrayed  by  me  to  the  Komans,  and  when  all  men 
were  exasperated  against  me,  and  ready  to  bring  me  to  punishment,  the 
inhabitants  of  Taricheai  did  also  themselves  suppose  that  what  the  young 
men  said  was  true,  and  persuaded  my  guards  and  armed  men  to  leave  me 
when  I  was  asleep,  and  to  come  presently  to  the  hippodrome,  in  order 
there  to  take  counsel  against  me,  their  commander."  —  Josephus,  Life, 
27,  Whiston's  trans.  The  conversation  of  Josephus,  as  narrated  by 
himself,  was  well  adapted  to  cultivate  the  alleged  susjiicions.  He  says  : 
"When  I  had  sent  for  some  of  those  multitudes  of  the  people  of  Tiberias 
out  of  prison,  among  whom  were  Justus  and  his  father  Pistus,  1  made 
them  sup  with  me  ;  and  during  our  supper-time,  I  said  to  them,  that  I 
knew  the  power  of  the  Romans  was  sujjerior  to  all  otheis,  but  did  not 
say  so  [publicly],  because  of  the  robbers.  So  I  advised  them  to  do  as  I 
did,  and  to  wait  for  a  proper  opportunity."  —  Life,  35,  Winston's  trans. 

*i  See,  under  Note  G,  the  term  Imjicrator  in  foot-notes  30,  31.  Accord- 
ing to  Suetonius,  Vespas.  5,  the  jirediction  was  merely  that  Vespasian 
as  an  Impcrator  would  set  Josephus  at  liberty.  This  may  have  meant 
that  the  latter  hoped  to  convince  Vespasian  of  his  having  been  through- 
out the  war  a  good  friend  to  the  Romans. 

*2  Vespasian  was  proclaimed  emjieror,  July  1,  A.  D.  69.  Tacitus  must 
speak  of  an  earlier  date  when  he  mentions  {Hid.  2,  7{),  77)  a  speech  of 
Mucianus,  publicly  exhorting  Vespasian  to  assume  imperial  power  ;  to 
which  he  adds  (ch.  78),  that  "public  rumor  had  promj)tly  taken  up,  and 
was  engaged  in  explaining  these  ambiguities,  [supposed  predictions  of 
imperial  power  for  Vespasian].  .  .  .  He  was  spoken  to  [on  the  subject] 
more  frequently,  since  the  object  hoped  for  is  apt  to  be  conversed  ujion." 
Probably  from  the  date  of  Nero's  death,  or  soon  after,  Vesjiasian  and  his 
friends  were  discussing  his  claims  and  prospects. 

*^  The  wording  given  to  us  by  Josephus  of  his  prediction  is,  of  course, 
unreliable.  It  needs,  howerer,  but  the  change  of  one  word  to  give  it 
plausibility,  provided  it  were  uttered  after  Nero's  death.     The  change  is. 


560  JEWISH   REVOLT  UNDER  NERO.  [NOTE  I. 

ciimstance  mentioned  in  the  note  gives  some  color  to  this 
supposition.** 

§  V.    Agrippa  and  Berenice. 

Agrippa  and  Berenice,  even  as  seen  through  the  medium  of 
Josephus,  appear  to  advantage.  In  spite  of  provocation,^^  no 
instance  is  mentioned  in  which  either  advocated  harshness, 
whilst  both  of  them  more  than  once  show  themselves  friends 
of  humanity.'*^  The  kingdom  of  Agripj)a  did  not  include  Je- 
rusalem, but  his  advice  to  its  inhabitants  was  sensible,*''  and, 
for  a  time,  not  without  effect  on  the  better  portion  of  them. 

§  VI.  The  Christians. 
Christians  during  the  earlier  commotions  sympathized  with 
the  popular,  rather  than  with  the  aristocratic  party,  and  suf- 
fered somewhat  at  the  hands  of  the  latter.'*^  When  the  Mes- 
sianic excitement  passed  into  revolution,  and  fell  into  the 
hands  of  unprincipled  and  violent  men,  the  Christians  must 
have  lost  their  accord  with  it,  for  they  left  Jerusalem.*' 
Probably  they  had  among  their  number  those  who  expected 
God  to  take  issue  with  the  Romans,  as  he  had  with  the 
Egyptians,  in  the  days  of  Moses,  but  who  had  no  thought  of 
assuming  to  take  it  themselves. 

to  substitute  Caesar  for  Nero,  so  that  one  of  Nero's  successors  might  be 
understood.  "Do  you  send  me  to  Nero  [to  Caesar?].  .  .  .  The  succes- 
sors of  Nero  remain  [merely  as]  reliefs  on  guard,  until  [the  coming  of] 
yourself.  You,  Vesyiasian,  are  (.'sesar,  and  you  are  Imfcrator,  as  also 
this,  your  son."  ^  Josephus,  Wars,  3,  8,  0.  Some  unimportant  grandilo- 
quence, from  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  speech,  is  omitted. 

**  Josephus  represents  Vespasian  after  the  siege  of  Jotapata  ( Wars,  3, 
9,  1)  as  going  into  winter  quavtei's  in  the  month  of  June,  —  a  credible  thing 
in  the  year  68,  after  the  country  had  been  conquered,  and  after  the  death 
of  Nero  had  temporarily  diverted  Vespasian's  attention  from  the  war, 
but  very  unlikely  in  the  year  67. 

*^  The  palaces  of  Agrippa  and  Berenice  were  burnt  (Josephus,  JFars, 
2,  17,  (>),  and  the  life  of  his  subordinate,  Philip,  put  in  peril  (Josephus, 
Life,  11)  by  the  revolutionists;  another  palace  at  Tiberias,  which  must 
have  belonged  to  the  king  (Josephus,  Life,  12),  was  plundered  and  burnt; 
the  wife  of  Ptolemy,  the  king's  superintendent,  was  waylaid  (Josephus, 
Life,  26)  and  her  carriages  ])!undi'red ;  ambassadors  of  the  king  were 
murdered.  Berenice,  wlio  is  cruelly  calumniated  by  Josephus  {Antiq. 
20,  7,  :!),  cannot  have  escaped  similar  misrepresentation  from  his  coarse 
coadjutors  and  followers. 

*^  Josephus,   Wars,  2,  15,  1  ;  3,  9,  8;  Life,  65. 

*''  Josephus,   Wars,  2,  16,  4. 

*8  See  Ch.  VIII.  notes  202,  20.3. 

*'  According  to  Eusebius  {Ere.  Hist.  3,  5)  the  Christians  left  Jerusalem 
and  went  to  a  town  named  Pella,  in  what  was  called  Penea,  beyond  the 
Jordan. 


NOTE  J.]  TWO   MODERN  WORKS.  561 


NOTE  J. 

TWO  MODERN  WORKS. 

§  I.    Smith's  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography. 

The  above  work  is  a  standard  one,  and  therefore  its  errors 
should,  if  possible,  be  pointed  out  and  corrected. 

Its  Chronological  Tables  of  Roman  History  at  the  close  of 
Vol.  3,  need,  in  the  first  century,  at  least  four  emendations. 
Josephus  was  born  in  the  first  year  of  Caligula ;  ^  the  Tables 
place  his  birth  in  the  second.  The  Jewish  war  began  in  the 
twelfth  year  of  Nero;  ^  the  Tables  say  in  the  thirteenth.  Ag- 
ricola  died  while  Domitiau  was  in  Rome;^  the  Tables  make 
the  Emperor  absent  at  the  Sarmatian  war.*  Philo's  embassy 
(see  p.  217)  reached  Eome  in  the  winter  of  37  -  38  ;  the  Tables 
place  it  near  the  close  of  a.  d.  40. 

Several  biographical  articles  in  the  Dictionary  are  written 
with  too  little  appreciation  of  the  fact,  that  our  sources  of  in- 
formation are  chiefly  patrician,  and  are  coloi'ed  by  aristocratic 
views  and  feelings. 

§  II.    Gibbon. 

The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  Gibbon 
contains,  in  its  statement  of  facts,  many  errors  implying  at 
times  gross  negligence.  Some  of  these  have  already  been 
pointed  out.^  Of  a  portion  no  reasonable  explanation  can  be 
imagined,  except  that  Gibbon  took  notes,  and  at  a  later  day 
wrote  from  these,  without  re-examining  his  authorities.  A 
writer,  even  if  gifted  with  excellent  memory,  will  find  such  a 
plan  hazardous.  It  should  never  be  adopted  in  matters  of  im- 
portance, nor  in  any  case  without  warning  to  the  reader. 

1  Josephus,  Life,  1.  He  must  have  been  born  early  in  the  year  37,  or 
else  must  speak  only  approximately  when  saying  in  his  Life,  §  15,  that 
he  was  about  thirty  years  old  when  in  the  year  66  he  became  a  revolu- 
tionist. 

2  See  Note  I,  foot-note  2. 

3  See  Note  G,  foot-note  136. 

*  Agricola  died  (Tacitus,  Agric.  44)  August  23  of  A.  D.  93.  The  Tables 
represent  Domitian  as  setting  out  in  May  of  93  for  the  Sarmatian  war, 
and  as  not  returning  until  in  the  year  94. 

&  See  pp.  136  u- 137  n,  159  n,  312  n,  441  n- 442  n,  475  n. 


562  TWO   MODERN   WORKS.  [NOTE  J. 

In  a  passage  of  Gibbon  already  quoted,®  Christians  are  rep- 
resented as  anticipating  Rome's  overthrow  by  Northern  barba- 
rians. This  must  refer  to  a  period  before  Constantine,  for  it 
is  stated  among  the  causes  which  filled  the  Christian  ranks. 
But  expectations  among  them,  of  that  event,  were  borrowed 
from  the  Jews,  and  any  expected  conquerors  wei'e  accordingly 
Eastern  ones.''  Gibbon  may  have  entered  the  word  Barbari- 
ans in  his  notes  and  filled  in  the  word  "Northern"  after  his 
study  of  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  who  did  not,  however,  invade 
heathen  Rome.  Rome  had  become  professedly  Christian  be- 
fore their  invasion. 

Again,  if  we  compare  the  two  accounts  of  Commodus  killing 
an  ostrich,  one  by  Dio  Cassius,  an  eye-witness,  and  the  other 
by  Gibbon,^  it  seems  probable  that  this  latter  historian  must 
have  taken  notes  from  Herodian®  as  an  amusing  specimen  of 
extravagance,  and  written  them  out  subseqviently  when  he 
had  forgotten  that  a  less  marvellous  narrative  existed.  Un- 
less this  be  so.  Gibbon  lacks'  frankness  towards  his  readers  in 
omitting  even  to  hint  that  a  different  and  more  reliable  ac- 
count was  extant. 

Further,  the  killing  of  bears,  recorded  by  Dio  Cassius,  and 


6  See  Ch.  VI.  note  47. 

■?  See  in  Ch.  IX.  the  last  paragraph  of  note  26.  Compare  Ch.  VI.  §  ii. 
No.  .3 ;  and  observe,  in  the  Appendix,  the  absence  from  Note  F,  §  in.  of 
anything  which  might  justify  Gibbon's  statement.  Lactantius,  when 
treating  of  Rome's  destruction,  says  expressly  (/)m\  Inst.  7,  I.")),  "Supreme 
power  {Impcriuin)  sliall  return  to  Asia.  The  East  sliall  again  rule  and 
the  West  be  subservient."  His  view  is,  in  this  respect,  the  same  which 
Cicero,  more  than  three  centuries  earlier  (see  Note  A,  foot-note  96)  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  his  Stoic  — and  therefore  somewhat  Judaizing— brother. 
If  any  Christian  predicted  Rome's  overthrow  by  Northern  barbarians, 
Gibbon  has  not  pointed  him  out,  nor  have  I  found  the  passage. 

8  "Having  killed   an  ostrich    and         "With    arrows    whose    point    was 
cut  off  its  head,  lie  came  to  wliere  we     shaped   into  the  form  of  a  crescent, 
sat,  lioldins  in  liis  left  hand  the  head,     Commodus    often    intercepted    the 
and  in  his  ris-ht  tlie  bloody  sword.  .  .  .    rapid  career  and  cut  asunder  the  long 
I  ate  laurel  leaves  whicli  I  got  from     bony  neck  of  the  ostrich." — Gibbon, 
my  crown,  and  persuaded  others,  who    ch.  4,  Vol.  1,  p.  106. 
were  sitting  near  me,  to  chew  them, 
that    by    continual    motion    of    our 
mouths   we    might  conceal   the   evi- 
dence of  our  laughing."  —  Dio  Cass. 
72,  21. 

®  According  to  Herodian  (1, 1.5,  fi),  the  ostrich  was  decapitated  by  a 
crescent-tipped  arrow,  and  its  body  continued  to  run  after  its  head  was 
shot  off.  One  would  tliink  that  arrows  so  constructed  would  be  likely 
to  traverse  the  air  wrong-end  foremost. 


§  II.]  GIBBON.  5G3 

of  lions  by  Gibbon,  are  so  likely  to  have  been  the  same 
event  ^°  as  to  have  claimed  a  word  of  caution,  even  if  the  his- 
torian found  the  latter  in  Herodian. 

Gibbon's  judgment,  equally  as  his  statement  of  facts,  is  re- 
peatedly defective.  His  belief,  that  the  Jews  neither  exer- 
cised, nor  endeavored  to  exercise,  influence  on  heathens,"  is 
only  palliated  by  their  present  condition.  His  estimate  of  the 
ruling  class  at  Rome  as  Philosophers,^^  is  absurdly  incorrect, 
and  is  inexcusable  in  one  acquainted  with  English  politics, 
and  with  the  debasing  influence  of  party  strife.^'^  His  esti- 
mate of  human  happiness  from  the  advent  of  Trajan  to  the 
death  of  Marc  Antonine  is  no  better.^*     How  any  one,  after 

10  "  On  the  first  day  he  alone  killed  "  The  dens  of  the  amphitheatre  dis- 
a  hundred  bears  by  throwing  javelins  gorged  at  once  a  hundred  lions.  A 
from  above,  fromthe  summit  of  the  hundred' darts  from  the  unerring  hand 
enclosing  wall.  For  the  amphithea-  of  Commodus  laid  them  dead,  as  they 
tre  was  diametrically  divided  by  con-  ran  raging  around  the  arena.  Neither 
nected  walls,  [these  walls]  having  a  the  huge  bulk  of  the  elephant,  nor  the 
roof  whereon  one  could  perambulate,  scaly  hide  of  the  rhinoceros,  could  de- 
and  which  Intersected  each  other,  so  feud  them  from  his  stroke." —  Gib- 
that  the  wild  beasts,  divided  into  four  bon,  ch.  4,  Vol.  1,  p.  106.  Compare 
groups,  could  from  a  short  distance  be  Herodiau,  1,  15,  5. 

readily  speared." — Dio  Cass.  72,18. 

11  See  Ch.  VII.  note  51. 

i'^  "It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  from  what  motives  a  spirit  of  persecution 
could  introduce  itself  into  the  Roman  councils,  .  .  .  since  the  magis- 
trates were  themselves  philosophers."  —  Gibbon,  ch.  2,  Vol.  1,  p.  35, 
edit.  Phila.  1816.  By  substituting  unprincipled  politicians  for  the  ei)i- 
thet  philosophers,  the  character  of  these  men  would  be  far  more  accu- 
rately expressed.  Let  any  one,  after  careful  study  of  patrician  politics, 
ask  himself  whether  the  designation  schoolboyish  would  be  too  severe 
for  Gibbon's  estimate  of  these  self-seeking  politicians.  Whether  at  the 
close  of  the  first  century  they  had  ability  enough  to  deserve  even  the 
name  of  politicians  might  be  rendered  doubtful  by  their  childishness  in 
pounding  to  pieces  the  images  of  Domitian  (see  Ch.  X.  note  39),  or  by 
their  hugging  Pliriy,  Junior,  and  overwhelming  him  with  kisses  after  he 
had  {Epist.  9,  13,  21)  uttered  some  of  his  spleen  against  an  opponent. 
Nonfere  quisquam  in  senatu  fait  qui  non  me  coinplecUretur  exosc.ularctur. 

1'  Gibbon  was  for  several  years  in  Parliament.  He  accepted  (Gibbon, 
Memoirs,  p.  103,  appended  to  Vol.  8,  of  his  Decline  and  Fall)  a  sine- 
cure salary  of  .$3,500  to  .$4,000  in  a  Board  of  Trade,  which  iniblic  indig- 
nation afterwards  abolished  (/itVZ.  p.  107);  and,  says  Gibbon,  "I  was 
stripped  of  a  convenient  salary  after  having  enjoyed  it  for  aliout  three 
years."  He  himself  states  {Ibid.  p.  109),  "My  personal  freedom  had 
been  somewhat  impaired  by  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Board  of 
Trade," — a  gentle  method  of  saying,  that  for  a  stipulated  price  he  had 
sold  his  vote  and  his  expressions  of  opinion  to  those  in  power.  Gibbon 
tells  all  this  without  the  slightest  apparent  sense  of  shame.  How  could 
such  a  man  do  justice  to  history? 

^*  "If  a  man  were  called  to  fix  the  period  in  the  history  of  the  world 


564  TWO    MODEEX   WORKS.  [N0T£  J. 

special  study  of  that  period,  could  utter  such  an  opinion, 
seems  incredible.  His  view  of  the  improving  influence  upon 
society,  exercised  by  the  Roman  festivals,'^  would,  in  another 
than  himself,  be  mistaken  for  mere  irony.  His  estimate  of 
the  Jews  is  appended  ;^®  also  a  sample  use  of  his  memory." 


during  which  the  condition  of  the  human  race  was  most  happy  and  pros- 
perous, he  would  without  hesitation  name  that  which  ehipsed  from  the 
death  of  Domitian  to  the  accession  of  Commodus."  —  Gibbon,  ch.  3, 
Vol.  1,  p.  89. 

This  period  consisted  of  a  hrief  reign  by  Nerva,  whose  kind-heartedness 
jiroved  inadequate  to  suppress  lawlessness  ;  next  Trajan,  whose  repeated 
wars  furnished  an  admirable  opportunity  for  army  contractors,  and  all 
such  as  knew  how  to  till  their  pockets  at  public  expense,  and  whose  best 
remedy  for  a  misgoverned  province  was  the  appointment  of  Pliny,  Junior, 
a  man  that  shielded  culprits  while  he  punished  religious  opponents  ; 
then  Hadrian,  who  executed  some  of  the  aristocracy,  lived  in  fear  of 
assassination  from  the  remainder,  and  whose  war  with  the  Jew's  rent 
society  into  factions  that  lasted  half  a  century ;  subsecpiently  Antoninus 
Pius,  a  man  probably  of  justice  and  good  sense,  but  concerning  whose 
reign  we  know  almost  nothing.  We  do  know,  however,  that  asperities 
from  the  preceding  reign  still  continued,  and  aside  from  famine,  earth- 
quake, and  conflagration,  already  mentioned  (Ch.  XII.  note  -1),  and  a  pes- 
tilence in  Arabia  (Capitolinus,  Antonin.  Pius,  9),  we  are  told  by  Capi- 
tolinus  {Antonitnia  Pius,  5,  6)  that  "he  carried  on  many  wars  through 
his  lieutenants,  for  he  conquered  the  Britons  .  .  .  and  compelled  the 
Moors  to  .seek  peace,  and  put  down  the  Germans  and  Dacians  and  many 
nations,  as  also  the  Jews  who  rebelled.  In  Achaia  also  and  in  Egypt  he 
suppressed  rebellions.  He  often  checked  the  threatening  Alani."  After 
iiim  came  Marc  Antonine,  of  whom  mention  will  be  found  in  Ch.  XII. 
§  II.  "He  wished  {Scripf.  Hist.  August,  p.  56)  to  make  Mareomannia  a 
province  and  Sarmatia  also."  A  not  very  hapjiy  result  of  this  may  be 
seen  in  Note  H,  foot-note  12.  To  what  has  already  been  given  must  be 
added  "a  pestilence  so  great  (Capitolinus,  M.  Anton.  13,  Script.  Hist. 
Aucficst.  p.  48)  that  the  dead  liodits  were  carried  out  in  wagons  and 
carts."  On  courts  in  this  era  see  p]).  2S7  n,  313  n  ;  on  its  literature,  p.  387. 

1*  "  The  Pontilfs  .  .  .  encouraged  the  public  festivals,  which  human- 
ize [!]  the  manners  of  a  people."— Gibbon,  ch.  2,  VoL  1,  p.  36.  See 
action  against  festivals  by  Flaccus,  p.  97  n. ,  and  Claudius,  p.  225  n. ; 
compare  public  amusements,  Ch.  X.  notes  58,  59. 

IS  "  The  sullen  obstinacy  with  which  they  maintained  their  peculiar 
rites  and  unsocial  manners  seemed  to  maik  them  out  a  distinct  species 
of  men,  who  boldly  professed,  or  who  faintly  disguised,  their  implacable 
hatred  to  the  rest  of  human-kind.  .  .  .  According  to  the  maxims  of  uni- 
versal tolerntion,  the  Romans  protected  fl]  a  superstition  which  they  de- 
spised."—  Gihhon,  Pomr,  ch.  15,  Vol.  2,  p.  59. 

"  In  the  acrostics  on  page  444,  Gibbon  connects  the  words  "  Savior," 
"Cross,"  translating  them  from  memory  it  would  seem,  "Savior  of  tlie 
world."  Connection  of  the  two  words  has  been  a  common  or  universal 
error.     Their  mistranslation  is  Gibbon's  own. 


NOTE  K.]  XENOPHON,  PLATO,  AND  HERACLITUS.       505 


NOTE  K. 

XENOPHON,  PLATO,  AND  HERACLITUS. 

§  I.    Xenophon, 

1.  Xenophon  and  Plato  lived  in  the  century  which  wit- 
nessed the  founding  of  Alexandria  and  the  apportionment  to 
Jews  of,  approximately,  one  third  its  area.  Both  travelled,  the 
former  as  a  soldier,  the  latter  as  a  philosopher,  in  regions 
where  the  Jews  must  already  have  been  spreading  their  views. 
Neither  evinces  Jewish  influence  to  the  same  extent  as  did 
the  Stoics  of  the  next  century.  Some  peculiarities  of  their 
writings,  however,  admit  explanation  wath  difficulty  in  any 
other  way  than  by  supposing  that  they  had,  directly  or  at 
second  hand,  borrowed  from  Jewish  teaching.  Aside  also 
from  these  peculiarities,  some  of  Plato's  views  have  an  interest 
in  connection  with  our  subject,  which  calls  for  their  intro- 
duction. 

2.  Xenophon,  though  less  versatile  than  Plato,  is  free  from 
the  trifling  which  soils  the  latter.  His  points  of  resemblance 
with  Judaism,  except  one  or  two  of  phraseology,  are  those 
which  might,  without  prompting,  engage  attention  from  a 
thoughtful  moralist.  Whether  a  soldier,  who  devoted  much 
attention  to  military  matters,  politics,  and  horses,  was  likely, 
unaided,  to  attain  these  views  is  more  questionable.  Whether 
he  obtained  them  from  Socrates  will  claim  a  subsequent 
remark. 

Xenophon,  without  specifying,  or  hinting  at,  any  heathen 
deity  as  man's  creator,  uses,  in  the  singular,  the  expression, 
"  He  who  in  the  beginning  made  human  beings."  ^  Almost 
the  same  language  appears  in  one  of  the  gospels  ^  as  a  quota- 
tion from  Jewish  Scripture,  and  we  find  closely  corresponding 
phraseology  in  the  Greek  (LXX.)  translation  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament.^    The  coincidence  is  singular,  imless  Xenophon  had 

1  '0  e$  o.pxn'i  Tfoiuv  dvOpihirovs.  —  Xenophon,  Mcmorahih  1,  4,  5. 

^  "Have  you  not  read,  tliat  6  iroirjaas  aw  dpxn^  ■  •  ■  avrovs.  'He 
who  in  the  beginning  made  .   .   .  them.'"- — Matthew  19,  4. 

^  'Ev  dpxv  •  •  •  fTToi-qaev  6  6e6s  avOpiii-Kov.  In  the  beginning  .  .  . 
God  made  man.  —  Genesis,  1,  1,  27.  iroirjp.a  5  iirolyjcrev  6  Oeds  an'  dpx'?s. 
"The  creation  (or  work)  which  God  in  the  beginning  made."  —  Eccle- 
siastes,  3,  11. 


566  XENOPHOX,   PLATO,  AND   HEKACLITUS.      [NOTE   K. 

learned  his  phraseology  from  monotheists,  and  it  is  the  more 
remarkable  since  his  words  can  hardly  have  been  intel- 
ligible to  a  person  acquainted  merely  with  heathen  views  and 
traditions. 

3.  Again,  we  find  that  Xenophon  uses  the  word  -n-povoLa,  dis- 
connected from  any  explanatory  substantive  or  adjective,  to 
designate  divine  Providence,*  a  use  previously  unknown  to 
classic  literature.^  If  he  introduced  this  new  meaning  he  was 
copied  not  merely  by  Stoics,  but  by  Jews  in  Asia  Minor,^  a 
very  unlikely  thing.  Jewish  views  could  not  be  taught  in 
Greek  without  some  term  to  express  God's  superintending 
care,  a  care  unknown  to  Greek  mythology.  Xenophon,  if 
thoughtful,  could  not  travel  in  lands  where  monotheism  was 
spreading,  without  noticing  some  of  its  ideas  and  phraseology. 
It  is  much  more  likely  that  in  this  instance  these  were  copied 
than  invented. 

4.  Xenophon  argues,  or  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates  an 
argument,  for  the  existence  of  divine  planning  and  care.  The 
adduced  proof  is  the  evidence  of  benevolent  design  afforded 
by  man's  physical  and  mental  constitiition.''  This  argument 
is  found  in  Jewish,^  but  not  in  heathen  teaching  of  earlier 
date.  If  Xenophon's  statement  be  accurate,  that  he  heard 
Socrates  use  it,  then  he  himself  at  least  did  not  bring  it  from 
the  land  of  monotheism.^  Literary  habits  at  that  date  call  for 
caution  in  taking  such  statements  literally.^°  Socrates,  if 
not  misrepresented,  took  satisfaction  in  badgering  rulers, -^^  — 

*  Mcmorahil.  1,  4,  «.  Benevolent  foresight,  not  moral  aid,  is  the 
manifestation  of  Providence,  which  the  passage  specially  brings  into 
view. 

^  Liddell  and  Scott's  Lexicon  gives  under  the  second  definition 
of  irpbvoLa,  "  FROM  Plato  downwards,  the  providence  of  the  gods, 
divine  providence."  I  am  unaware  of  such  use  in  Plato,  but  it  is  not 
earlier  among  heathens. 

6  See  p.  47,  note  20. 

'  Xenophon,  Mciiiorahil.  1,  4,  .I -18. 

8  See  Ch.  III.  note  57. 

^  Xenophon,  Memorahil.  1,  4,  i. 

1''  Compare  Ch.  VII.  note  97.  Xenophon  begins  his  work  De  Adminis- 
iraf.ione  Domcstica,  by  saying  that  it  was  a  conversation  of  Socrates 
to  which  he  had  listened.  It  covers  ninety-three  pages  iu  Weiske's 
edition. 

11  "  Socrates  inquired  of  thorn,  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  ask  a  ques- 
tion as  to  any  point  in  the  prohibitions  that  might  not  be  undmstooil  by 
him.  They  gave  him  ])ermission.  'Then,'  said  he,  '  I  am  i)re])ared  to 
obey  the  laws  ;  but  that  I  Miay  not  unconsciously  transgress  through 
ignorance,  I  wish  to  ascertain  exactly  from  you,  whether  it  is  because 


§^] 


XENOPHON.  5G7 


a  trait  compatible  with  capacity  for  exposing  error,  but  not 
likely  to  co-exist  with  that  mental  elevation  and  reverent 
appreciation  of  divine  goodness  which  seems  requisite  in  the 
ORIGINATOR  of  such  an  argument.  Fewer  qualifications  are 
needed  to  accept,  than  to  discover  it.  There  is  a  second  and 
cogent  reason  for  mistrusting  Socrates  as  originator  of  the 
argument  under  consideration.  He  was,  if  his  pupils  can  be 
trusted,  a  polytheist,  but  the  argument  is  inconsistent  with 
polytheism.  If  Socrates  himself  had  met  with  some  mono- 
theist,  it  might  account  not  merely  for  a  use  of  this  argument 
by  him,  but  for  his  demon. ^^ 

5.  Xenophon  assumes,  as  a  fair  inference  from  the  preced- 
ing, that  such  as  accepted  the  reasoning  would  regard  their 
actions,   even  in  solitude,   as  seen   by  the  gods,   and  gives 

you  think  that  the  art  of  reasoning  is  an  auxiliary  to  what  is  rightly 
spoken,  or  to  what  is  not  rightly  spoken,  that  you  give  connnand  to 
abstain  from  it ;  for  if  it  be  an  adjunct  to  what  is  rightly  spoken,  it  is 
plain  that  we  have  to  abstain  from  speaking  rightly  ;  but  if  to  what  is 
not  rightly  sj)oken,  it  is  i)lain  that  we  ought  to  endeavor  to  speak 
rightly.'  Charicles,  falling  into  a  jiassion  with  him,  said,  'Since,  Socra- 
tes, you  are  ignorant  of  this  particular,  we  give  you  an  order  more  easy 
to  be  understood,  not  to  discourse,  at  all  iviih  the  young.' 

"  'That  it  may  not  be  doubtful,  then,'  said  Socrates,  'whether  I  do 
anything  contrary  to  what  is  enjoined,  define  for  me  till  what  age  I 
must  consider  men  to  be  young.'  'As  long,'  replied  Charicles,  'as  they 
are  not  allowed  to  fill  the  office  of  senator,  as  not  being  yet  come  to 
maturity  of  understanding  ;  and  do  not  discourse  with  such  as  are  under 
thirty  years  of  age.' 

"  'And  if  I  wish  to  buy  anything,'  said  Socrates,  'and  a  person  under 
thirty  years  of  age  has  it  for  sale,  may  I  not  ask  him  at  what  jirice  he 
sells  it  ? '  '  Yes,  such  questions  as  these,'  replied  Charicles,  '  but  you  are 
accustomed  to  ask  most  of  your  questions  about  things,  when  you  know 
very  well  how  thej'  stand  ;  such  questions,  therefore,  do  not  aslc' 

"  '  If,  tlien,  an)'  young  man,'  said  he,  '.should  ask  me  such  a  question 
as  where  does  Charicles  live  ?  or  where  is  Critias  ?  may  I  not  answer  him 
if  I  know  ? '  '  Yes,  you  may  answer  such  questions,'  said  Charicles. 
'But,'  added  Critias,  'it  will  be  necessary  for  you  to  abstain  from  speak- 
ing of  those  shoemakers,  and  carpenters,  and  smiths  ;  indeed  I  think 
that  they  must  now  be  worn  out,  from  being  so  often  in  your  mouth.' 

"  '  I  must  therefore,'  said  Socrates,  'abstain  from  the  illustrations  that 
I  attach  to  the  mention  of  those  people,  illustrations  on  justice,  piety, 
and  other  subjects.'  'Yes,  by  Jupiter,'  retorted  Charicles."  —  Xeno- 
phon, Mcmorabil.  1,  2,  33-37,  Bohn's  trans. 

The  law  was,  according  to  Xenophon,  a  general  one,  though  he  deems 
it  specially  aimed  at  Socrates.  These  rulers  were  the  antagonists  of 
those  who  put  Socrates  to  death. 

12  Judaism  taught  an  evek-present  Deitj'.  The  demon  of  Socrates  is 
certainlj'  not  the  God  of  Judaism.  But  it  may  have  been  a  misconcep- 
tion, based  on  some  of  the  monotheistic  teachings  concerning  God. 


568  XENOPHON,   PLATO,   AND   HERACLITUS,      [NOTE   K. 

Socrates  the  credit  of  thus  exercising  wholesome  influence 
over  young  men.  This  idea  of  divine  watchfuhiess  over 
human  transgression  was  familiar  to  Jews.  It  certainly  was 
not  FAMILIAR,  nor  perhaps  even  known,  to  heathens  outside 
of  Jewish  influence.  We  shall  find  in  the  next  section  that 
Plato,  also  a  pupil  of  Socrates,  assumes  human  character, 
while  men  ai'e  in  the  body,  to  be  invisible  to  the  gods. 

§  II.    Plato. 

1.  Plato  teaches,  or  ascribes  to  Socrates,  sundry  views 
common  among  Jews,  but  previously  unknown  to  heathens  in 
his  own  country.  It  might  be  a  mistake  to  assume  his  in- 
ability to  originate  any  of  them.  Yet  it  would  certainly  be  a 
mistake  to  imagine  him  travelling  where  these  views  were 
held^^  and  taking  no  cognizance  of  them.  We  find  in  his 
writings  Creation  and  a  Creator,  and  a  rude  approximation  to 
the  doctrine  of  Providence  and  a  Judgment.  His  teachings 
on  these  subjects  may  not  be  consistent  with  each  other,  nor 
with  moral  earnestness,  nor  with  his  views  on  other  topics. 
Yet  the  question,  whether  they  did,  or  did  not,  originate 
independently  of  Judaism,  claims  attention.  On  this  point 
we  shall  first  examine  consecutively  some  appearances  of  his 
having  borrowed,  and  thereafter  some  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  his  having  originated. 

2.  Plato's  account  of  creation,  though  verbose  and  imagi- 
native, has,  in  its  order  of  events,  so  much  resemblance 
to  that  in  Genesis  as  to  preclude  easy  belief  of  its  total 
independence.^^ 

13  Plato  visited  Egypt  and  Gyrene.  The  former  must,  and  the  latter 
may  already,  in  his  time,  have  been  the  residence  of  many  Jews.  He 
also  "explored  the  extremities  of  the  earth"  {Ultiinaa  terras  lustrasse 
Pyf.hafjoram,  BanocrUum,  Platonan  accepimus.  —  Cicero,  TuscuL 
Qua'st.  4,  1'.),  an  expression  whicli  in  Cicero's  mouth  must  be  understood 
of  Oriental  countries.  Tradition  mentions  no  visit  to  ignorant  South 
Africa  or  North  Europe.  The  testimony  of  Lactantius  is  free  from 
doctrinal  bias,  and  is  more  specific.  "  I  am  accustomed  to  wonder,  that 
when  Pythagoras  and  subsecjuently  Plato,  incited  by  love  of  searching 
into  truth,  jjenctrated  to  Egyi)t  and  the  Magi  and  even  to  the  Persians 
.  .  .  they  yet  did  not  go  to  the  [laud  of  the]  Jews."  — Lactant.  Div. 
Inst.  4,  i. 

1*  The  Tima-us  is  here  given  in  Bohn's  translation.  Tlie  i)ages  in 
parenthesis  are  those  of  Ast. 

Genesis.  Plato's  Tim.eus. 

"  The  earth  was  witliout  form  and  "  The  deity  .  .  .  took  everything 
void." — 1.  2.  ...  in  excessive  .  .  .  disorder,  and 

tlien  refiuce(l  it .  .  .  into  order."— Ch. 
10,  p.  334  (138). 


§11.]  PLATO.  569 

3.  In  Genesis  two  accounts  of  creation  are  given,  one  of 
which  represents  man  and  woman  as  created  at  difterent  times. -^^ 
The  other  represents  them  as  simultaneously  formed,  and  is 
so  worded  as  to  permit  misapprehension  that  they  had  but 
one  body,^®  —  a  misapprehension  which  could  be  suggested, 
or  confirmed,  by  confusing  with  it  a  subsequent  figurative 
expression."  Plato  seems  either  to  have  misunderstood  or 
burlesqued  this  part  of  the  narrative.  In  his  Table-Talk  he 
alleges  that  besides  man  and  woman  there  originally  existed  a 
duplicate  being,  a  man-woman.^*     This  conception  he  so  am- 

"  God  made  the  firmament .  .  .  and  "  The  framer  of  the  worlds  produced 
called  the  firmament  heaven  "  —  1,  ...  this  the  solely  begotten  heaven." 
7,  8.  Ch.  11,  p.  335  (140). 

"Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firma-  "God  .  .  .  contrived  the  days  and 
ment  ...  to  divide  day  from  night  nights,  months  and  years,  .  .  .  with 
and  ...  for  signs  and  seasons  and  this  design  .  .  .  the  Deity  .  .  .  cre- 
days  and  years."  — 1, 14-  ated  the  sun,  moon,  and  the  five  other 

stars  ...  to  distinguish  .  .  .  time." 
—  Ch.  14,  pp.  341,  342  (152-154). 

"God  said,  Let  the  waters  bring  "The  creator  constructed  .  .  .  the 
forth  .  .  .  fowls  that  may  fly." — l,  20.     heavenly  race  of  gods,  [i.  e.  the  stars] 

another    winged    and   air-wandering 
race, 

"  God  created  great  whales." — 1,  21.     a  third,  that  which  dwells  in  water, 

"  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  and  a  fourth, 

.  .  .  cattle."  —  1,  24.  that  which  has  feet  and  walks  on  the 

"God  saw  everything  .   .  .  and  be-    ground.  — Ch.  15,  p.  343  (156). 
hold  it  was  very  good."  —  1,  31.    -qy-        "He  was  delighted  Tf/affdr]  re  Kal 
<i>paiviTo  TT]v  oIkov/x^vtjv  (TWTeXeaas. —    iixppavdeis  with  his  work."  —  Ch.  14, 
Prov.  8,  31.  p.  340. 

15  Genesis,  2,  7,  21,  22.     See  the  twofold  account  in  Note  L. 

1®  "God  made  rdv  dvdpwTrov,  A  HUMAN  being.  .  .  .  He  made  THEM 
male  and  female."  —  Gen.  1,  27. 

"  "  The  two  shall  be  one  flesh."  — Gen.  2,  24. 

18  "  In  the  first  place,  there  were  three  kinds  of  human  beings,  not  as 
at  present,  only  two,  male  and  female ;  but  there  was  also  a  third  com- 
mon to  both  of  those ;  the  name  only  of  which  now  remains,  it  has  itself 
disappeared.  It  was  then  [one]  man-woman,  whose  form  and  name  par- 
took of  and  was  common  to  both  the  male  and  the  female.  But  it  is 
now  nothing  but  a  name,  given  by  way  of  reproach.  In  the  next  place, 
the  entire  form  of  every  individual  of  the  human  race  was  rounded, 
having  the  back  and  sides  as  in  a  circle.  It  had  four  hands,  and  legs 
equal  in  number  to  the  hands;  and  two  faces  upon  the  circular  neck, 
alike  in  every  way,  and  one  head  on  both  the  faces  placed  opposite,  and 
four  ears,  .  .  .  and  from  these  it  is  easy  to  conjecture  how  all  the  other 
parts  were  (doubled).  They  walked,  as  now,  upright,  whithersoever 
they  pleased.  And  when  it  made  haste  to  run,  it  did,  in  the  manner  of 
tumblers,  who,  after  turning  their  legs  (upward)  in  a  circle,  place  them 
accurately  in  an  upright  position,  support  itself  on  its  eight  limbs,  and 
afterwards  turn  itself  over  quickly  in  a  circle."  —  Plato,  The  Banquet., 
16,  Bohn's  trans.  This  animal  was  subsequently  bisected,  and  threat- 
ened with  further  surgery  if  it  did  not  behave. 


570  XENOPHON,   PLATO,   AND   HERACLITUS.      [NOTE  K. 

plifies  as  to  create  the  impression  that  he  and  his  hearers 
were  badly  off  for  sensible  occupation..  Either  he  must  have 
loved  to  excite  wonder,  or  must  himself  have  been  the  victim 
of  some  other  person's  vivid  imagination.  The  folly  did  not 
stop  here.  A  sculptor  of  that  era  undertook  to  represent  this 
man- woman. ^^  At  a  later  date  a  divine  appellation,  Her- 
maphrodite, or  Mercury-Venus,  was  invented  for  it,  perhaps 
to  rescue  it  from  ridicule  or  from  taint  of  Judaism. 

4.  Again,  Jewish  writers,  in  their  effort  to  express  divine 
power,  speak  of  the  hills  as  smoking,  or  melting,  at  God's 
touch,  or  presence,  and  one  writer  mentions  them  and  their 
forests  as  ignited  by  God's  lightning. ^°  Plato  represents 
them,  rather  than  the  plains,  as  catching  fire  from  proximity 
to  the  sun,  or  to  heavenly  bodies.-^  This  is  so  opposite  to 
human  experience,  —  which  finds  increased  cold  with  increase 
of  elevation,  — that  we  cannot  suppose  Plato  to  have  taken  his 
conception  from  natural  laws.  His  invention  of  the  idea 
would  be  discreditable  to  his  common-sense.  A  use  of  it  by 
him,  if  picked  up,  may  be  slightly  less  so. 

5.  The  term  "  Lucifer,"  Light-hearer,  or  Dauni-hringer,  is  used 
in  Isaiah  "^^  as  an  appellation  for  the  planet,  which  among 
Greeks  and  Romans,  prior  to  Jewish  influence,  was  commonly 
called  Venus.  Plato  also  uses  the  term  "  Lucifer,"  ^^  or  rather 
the  corresponding  Greek  term  ewcrc^dpos,  which  appears  in  the 
Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament. 

1^  In  Smith,  Did.  of  Biog.  art.  Polydes,  two  statuaries  are  men- 
tioned, the  earlier  of  whom,  living  in  B.  c.  370,  is  credited  with  sculp- 
turing a  Hermaphrodite.  The  same  work,  art.  Hermcqjhroditus,  says 
that,  "The  first  celebrated  statue  of  an  hermaphrodite  was  that  by 
Polycles." 

•JO  "The  hills  melted  like  wax  at  the  presence  of  the  Lord." — Psalm 
97,  5.  "  He  looketh  on  the  eartli  and  it  ti-embleth,  he  toucheth  the  liills 
and  they  smoke."  —  Psalm  104,  ;!-j,  Noyes's  trans.  Compare  Nahura 
1,  .%  and  Deutei-onomy  32,  -li,  quoted  in  Ch.  III.  note  14.  "And  the 
fire  [lightning],  sent  from  above  to  consume  hills  and  woods,  doeth  as  it 
is  commanded."  —  Baruch  6,  (i3. 

21  "At  certain  long  intervals  of  time,  the  earth's  surface  is  destroyed 
by  mighty  fires.  When  this  occurs,  then  those  who  dwell  either  on 
mountains  or  in  lofty  and  dry  places  perish  in  greater  numbers  ;  .  .  . 
when  the  gods,  to  ))urify  the  earth,  deluge  its  surface  with  water,  then 
the  herdsmen  and  shepherds  on  the  mountains  are  preserved  in  safety." 
— Plato,  Timmus,  5,  Bohn's  trans.  The  fire  is  attributed  to  depression 
in  heavenly  liodies,  tuv  irepl  yrjv  koI  kclt  ovpavbv  Iovtwv  TrapdWa^is.  (Ast's 
edit.  Vol.  "5,  p.  124.) 

22  "  Lucifer,  son  of  the  morning."  — Isaiah  14,  V2. 

23  p];,to,  JJpinomis,  9,  Ast'.s(M]it.  8,  p.  ;$(.!.  \i'  Ute  Epivomishe,  as  some 
think,  no  work  of  Plato,  this  argument  should  be  dropped  from  the  series. 


§  n.]  PLATO.  571 

6.  Plato  in  his  Timseus  attributes  to  the  world  a  soul.^^ 
This  resembles  the  Stoic  view,"'^  taken,  not  from  Plato,  but 
from  Judaism.  The  Stoics  were  opponents  of  Plato,  and  all 
evidence  shows  that  they  borrowed  not  from  him,  but  from  a 
monotheistic  quarter.  It  is  more  likely  that  Plato  also  bor- 
rowed than  that  he  originated  this  view.  The  details  con- 
nected with  it  may  be  chiefly  his  own. 

7.  Plato  applies  to  the  deity  the  term  "Father"  in  the  same 
sense  as  did  the  Stoics,  namely,  to  designate  him  as  Source, 
or  Origin,  of  all  things.''^*'  The  Stoics  learned  their  phrase- 
ology in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria,  where  they  originated,^  and 
Plato  probably  learned  his  in  the  same  quartei*.  It  could  only 
originate  with  a  monotheist,  since  it  implies  a  Being,  the 
Source  of  all  things.  Analogous  phraseology  is  found  in  Jew- 
ish writings.^* 

8.  Plato,  equally  with  Xenophon,  knows  nothing  of  divine 
interposition  in  behalf  of  individual  morality.  He  teaches, 
however,  that  the  gods  take  cognizance  of,  and  pay  judicial 
attention  to  the  details  of  human  affairs.  Thus  far  he 
teaches  a  Providence.  He  also  teaches  a  Judgment.  In 
advocating  the  former  he  assumes  that  we  cannot  ascribe  to 
the  gods  ignorance  of,  or  indifference  to,  human  affairs. ^^     In 

2*  "As  for  the  soul  he  [the  Creator]  fixed  it  in  the  middle.  .  .  .  By 
this  procedure  then  he  produced  the  universe,  a  blessed  God."  —  Plato, 
Timccus,  12,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Ast's  edit.  5,  p.  146. 

25  See  Ch.  III.  notes  6,  61,  63. 

26  Plato  in  his  Timceus,  14,  p.  37  C,  Ast's  edit.  5,  p.  152,  after  de- 
scribing creation,  speaks  of  the  Originator  as  "  the  Father  who  begot" 
the  universe  ;  and  in  the  same  work,  9,  p.  28  C,  Ast's  edit.  5,  p.  136, 
says  that  "it  is  a  work  to  discover  the  Maker  and  Father  of  this  uni- 
verse, and  it  is  impossible  for  one  who  has  discovered  him  to  mention 
him  to  all." 

27  See  Ch.  III.  note  3. 

28  See  Ch.  III.  note  40. 

29  The  argument  will  be  found  in  the  Laws,  10,  10-13,  pp.  899-905; 
Ast.  7,  pp.  270-286.  Throughout  it  the  term  -wpovoia  does  not  occur. 
Plato  uses  this  term  elsewhere  (jTzinoeMS,  18,  19,  pp.  44  C,  45  A ;  Ast. 
5,  pp.  168,  170),  in  one  case  to  denote  foresight  of  the  gods  in  forming 
man,  and  in  the  other  to  designate  a  human  faculty.  At  the  close  of  his 
argument  is  an  expression  so  similar  to  one  in  the  Old  Testament  that  it 
claims  record. 

Old  Testament.  Plato. 

"If  I  ascend  into  heaven,  thou  art        "  Yoii  will  never  be  overlooked  by 

there.  it   [divine    watchfulness],  though  in 

"If  I  make  my  bed  in  the  Under-    humility  you  should  descend  to  the 

■world,  behold,  thou  art  there." — Ps.     depths  of' the  earth,  or  if  in  exalta- 

139,8.  tion  vou  should  flv  up  into  heaven." 

—  Laws,  10, 13,  pi  905,  A  (Ast.  7,  p. 
284). 


572  XENOPHON,   PLATO,   AND   HERACLITUS.      [NOTE   K. 

teaching  the  latter  he  assumes  that  the  gods  at  first  left  the 
matter  to  incompetent  judges,*^  and  that  neither  they  nor 
their  chief,  then  or  subsequently,  gave  personal  attention  to 
judgment.  Instead  of  this,  the  decision  upon  men's  character 
was  subsequently  delegated  to  a  couple  of  judges,  who  must 
have  been  imperfect,  since  they  were  expected  in  some  cases 
to  be  in  doubt.  When  this  occurred  a  third  judge  was  to  be 
called  in,  not  that  he  was  infallible,  but  that  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  justice  might  be  obtained.*^  His  teaching  concern- 
ing judgment  pointedly  contradicts  his  allegations  of  divine 
watchfulness. 

9.  A  portion  of  the  Jews  taught  a  future  life  on  this  earth. 
The  good  were  to  enjoy  a  thousand  years  of  happiness,  while 
the  wicked  were  yet  under  ground. ^•^  The  Buddhists  teach 
transmigration.  Plato  seems  to  have  borrowed  from  both, 
.and  to  have  added  or  altered  from  his  imagination.  He 
taught  transmigration,  and  that  after  the  wicked  had  been  a 
thousand  years  under  ground,  and  the  good  for  a  thousand 
years  in  happiness,  both  would  be  returned  to  this  life,  having 
first,  however,  dnmk  the  waters  of  forgetfuluess.^^  His  de- 
tails differ  from  the  Jewish  ones.^* 

^'^  "  During  the  reign  of  Saturn,  and  even  recently,  when  Jupiter  held 
the  government,  there  were  living  judges  of  the  living,  who  passed  sen- 
tence on  the  very  day  on  which  any  one  was  about  to  die.  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  sentences  were  awarded  badly.  .  .  .  Jupiter,  therefore, 
said,  I  will  prevent  this  in  future.  For  now  sentences  are  badly  awarded, 
because  those  that  are  judged  are  judged  clothed,  for  they  are  judged  while 
living.  .  .  .  They  must  be  judged  divested  of  all  these  things  ;  for  they 
must  be  judged  after  they  are  dead;  the  judge,  too,  must  be  naked  and 
dead,  and  examine  with  his  soul  the  soul  of  each  immediately  after 
death."— Plato,  Gorgias,  166,  167,  p.  523  B,  C,  E,  Bohn's  trans;  Ast, 
1,  p.  458. 

^^  "  Ehadamanthus  shall  judge  those  from  Asia,  and  Jilacus  those  from 
Europe.  But  to  Minos  I  will  give  the  prerogative  of  deciding  in  case 
any  doubt  occurs  to  the  two  others,  in  orcler  that  the  judgment  respect- 
ing the  path  men  are  to  take  may  be  as  just  as  possible."  —  Plato,  Gor- 
gias, 168,  p.  524  A,  Bohn's  trans.  ;  Ast.  1,  p.  460. 

^^  Justin  Martyr  evidently  regarded  his  millennial  views  {Dial.  80, 
quoted  in  Underworld  Mission,  pp.  164-168)  as  in  sympathy  with  those 
of  his  Jewish  opponents.  Jews  doubtless  shared  with  Jewisli  Christians 
the  belief  that  after  the  resurrection  of  the  just  (Rev.  20,  5)  "the  other 
dead  lived  not  again  until  the  thousand  years  were  finished." 

^  The  account  will  be  found  in  his  Rcj.mblic,  10,  13-  iti,  pp.  614  -  621 ; 
Ast.  5,  pp.  90-108. 

3*  That  view  of  the  Jews  with  which  we  are  most  familiarized  through 
writings  of  Jewish  CHiristians,  places  the  resurrection  of  the  unjust  sub- 
sequently to  that  of  the  just,  which  Plato  does  not.     It  is  probable,  how- 


§n.] 


PLATO.  573 


10.  In  arguing  for  the  existence  of  gods,^^  Plato  distin- 
guishes between  objects  which  have  the  power  of  self-motion 
(meaning  animate  ones)  and  those  which  have  not.^®  Motion 
requires  a  cause,  and  therefore  priority  in  date  must  be  given 
to  ANIMATE  existence,  that  is,  to  soul.^'^  Soul  must  therefore 
guide  and  administer  heaven,  earth,  and  sea.^ 

He  intended,  perhaps,  to  disparage  any  argument  for  the 
EXISTENCE  of  God,  or  gods,  from  evidence  of  design  in  the  uni- 
verse. He  uses  the  good  order  of  the  latter  merely  to  estab- 
lish the  CHARACTER  of  its  guide,  or  guides.^ 

ever,  that  the  Egyptian  Jews  held  quite  different  views  from  those  of 
Syria  and  Palestine  touching  details  of  the  future  life.  Alexandrine 
Christians  (see  Undcnvnrld  Mission,  22,  3)  held  that  righteous  followers 
of  Christ  went  to  heaven  at  death.  Alexandrine  Jews  probably  held  the 
same  view  concerning  the  just  of  their  own  race.  The  Ascension  of 
Isaiah  is  likely  to  have  copied  their  ideas  when  it  places  in  heaven  (Ch» 
9,  6-9)  the  Jewish  saints.  This  would  accord  better  with  Plato's  idea 
that  the  good,  at  death,  were,  for  a  thousand  years,  transferred  to  heaven. 

3S  The  argument  is  in  the  Laws,  10,  1  -  9,  pp.  885  D  -  900  D.  In  chap- 
ter 1,  p.  S86  A,  Plato  causes  a  speaker  to  introduce  two  arguments, 
one  from  order  in  the  universe  implying  evidence  of  design,  and  the 
other  from  the  common  ojiinion  of  mankind,  both  of  Greeks  and  Barbari- 
ans. Plato,  in  answering,  ignores,  aj^jiarently,  the  former  argument  and 
Tidicules  the  latter. 

^  ' '  Let  then  one  [kind  of  ?]  motion  be  that  which  is  able  to  move 
other  things,  but  is  ever  unable  to  move  itself;  and  let  the  other  be  that 
which  is  ever  able  to  move  both  itself  and  other  things,  .  .  .  and  let 
this  motion  be  different  from  [or  superior  to]  all  the  other  motions."  — 
Laws,  10,  6,  p.  894  B,  C,  D,  Bohn's  trans.  According  to  Cicero's 
understanding  of  this  passage  {De  Nat.  Deorum,  2,  1-2)  it  should  be  trans- 
lated :  "Let  there  be  17  fxh  'erepa.  one  [of  two  moving  bodies]  competent 
[under  outward  impulse]  to  move  —  a  certain  one,  however,  powerless 
always  to  move  itself:  ^  5'  .  .  .  S.W7)  fiia  tis  and  yet  another  one  com- 
petent always  to  move  [both]  itself  and  other  things."  Another  pas- 
eage,  however,  of  Plato  {Phcedrus,  51,  p.  245  C),  copied  also  bj"^  Cicero 
{Tusc.  Qucest.  1,  23;  cp.  De  Repuhlica,  6,  IS),  supports  the  former  trans- 
lation. 

^  "  Wliich  of  the  above-mentioned  motions  must  necessarily  exist  the 
first  ?  That  surely  which  moves  itself.  ...  Do  you  mean  that  the  thing 
which  moves  itself  is  the  definition  of  that  existence  which  we  all  call  by 
the  name  of  soul  ?  Yes,  I  do.  .  .  .  Soul  has  been  sufficiently  shown  to 
be  the  most  ancient  of  all  things  and  the  commencement  of  motion." 
—  Laws,  10,  7,  p.  895  A,  B,  896  A,  B,  Bohn's  trans. 

^  "Let  us  not  then  lay  down  less  than  two  [souls],  one  the  beneficent 
and  the  other  able  to  effect  things  of  a  contrary  kind.  .  .  .  Soul  then 
leads  everything  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth  and  in  the  sea."  —  Laws,  10, 
f,  p.  896  E. 

^  "  If  .  .  .  the  whole  path  of  heaven  .  .  .  possess  a  nature  similar 
to  .  .  .  reasonings  of  mind  ...  we  must  say  that  the  most  excellent 
soul  takes  care  of  the  whole  world." — Latvs,  10,  8,  j).  898  C. 


574  XENOPHON,   PLATO,  AND   HE11ACLITU3.      [XOTE  K. 

Plato  next  assumes  without  argument  or  proof  the  follow- 
ing two  propositions  :  that  each  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  of 
other  enumerated  things  is  guided  by  an  individual  soul,*'' 
and  that  this  soul  is  a  god.*^  Having  assumed  these  two  un- 
proved propositions,  his  conclusion  is  inevitable,  that  a  multi- 
tude of  gods  exist.*^ 

If  we  now  turn  to  another  of  his  works,  we  find  that  an 
excited  discussion  on  the  origin  of  motion  pervaded  Ephesus 
and  lonia.^  The  description  of  it  is  so  vivid  as  to  create  the 
belief  that  Plato  had  been  in  its  midst.  Towards  determining 
its  history  and  character  we  have  merely  the  following  infor- 
mation.    The -views,  advocated  with  such  warmth,  must  have 

40  <<  Athenian.  If  a  soul  leads  round  the  sun  and  inoon  and  the  other 
stars,  does  it  not  do  so  to  each  singly?  Clinias.  How  not?  Athe- 
nian. Let  us  tlieu  direct  our  arguments  to  one  (himinary),  that  they 
ftiay  appear  to  suit  all  the  stars." — Laivs,  10,  i>,  p.  898  D,  Bohn's  trans, 

41  "Athenian.  And  this  too  is  surely  better  ;  for  ev^ery  man  to  con- 
sider this  very  soul  as  a  god.  .  .  .  Climas.  Yes,  (for  every  man)  surely 
who  has  not  arrived  at  the  extremity  of  silliness, " — Laics,  10,  !',  p.  899  A ; 
Bohn's  trans. 

42  "Athenian.  But  with  respect  to  all  the  stars  and  the  moon  and 
years  and  months  and  all  the  seasons,  shall  we  give  anj'  other  account 
than  this,  that,  since  a  soul  or  souls,  good  in  every  virtue,  are  seen  to  be 
the  causes  of  all  these  things,  we  will  call  them  gods,  whether  they  exist 
in  bodies,  as  being  animals,  and  put  in  order  the  whole  of  lieaven  by 
whatever  road  or  in  whatever  manner  (they  do  so)  ?  nor  is  there  the  per- 
son who,  assenting  to  this,  would  endure  (to  say)  that  all  things  are  not 
full  of  gods.  Clinias.  There  is  not,  0  guest,  a  person  so  insane."  — 
Laws,  10,  %  p.  899  B,  C,  Bohn's  trans, 

*^  "Socrates.  Let  us,  then,  approach  nearer  to  it,  .  .  .  and  exam- 
ine this  essence,  that  is  said  to  consist  in  motion.  .  .  .  For  the  contest 
about  it  is  neither  mean  nor  among  a  few.  Theodorus.  It  is  very  far 
from  being  mean,  but  is  spreading  very  much  throughout  Ionia.  For 
the  partisans  of  Heraclitus  advocate  this  doctrine  very  strenuously.  .  .  . 
With  respect  to  these  Heraclitian,  or,  as  you  say,  Homeric,  and  even 
older  doctrines,  it  is  no  more  possible  to  converse  about  them  with  the 
people  of  Ephesus  who  pretend  to  be  acquainted  with  them,  than  with 
persons  who  are  raving  mad.  For,  just  as  their  written  doctrines,  they 
are  truly  in  constant  motion,  but  to  keep  an  argument  and  a  question, 
and  quietly  answer  and  ask  in  turn,  is  less  in  their  jiower  than  anything; 
or  rather  the  power  of  rest  in  these  men  is  infinitely  less  than  nothing. 
But  if  you  ask  any  one  of  them  a  question,  they  draw  out,  as  from  a 
quiver,  certain  dark  enigmatical  words,  and  shoot  them  off;  and  if  you 
wish  to  get  from  him  a  reason  for  what  he  has  said,  you  will  lie  forthwith 
stricken  with  another  newly  coined  word,  but  will  never  come  to  any 
conclusion  with  any  one  of  them ;  nor  do  they  with  one  anotlier,  but 
they  take  very  good  care  not  to  allow  anything  to  be  fixed,  either  in 
their  discourse  or  iu  their  souls." — Tliccctdas,  92,  pp.  179  D,  E,  180  A, 
Bohn's  trans. 


§  II.]  PLATO.  575 

been  novel,  for  a  flood  of  new  words  had  been  coined  to  ex- 
press them.  They  were  alleged  to  be  views  of  Heraclitus, 
whose  reputed  tenets  coincide  with  those  subsequently  known 
as  Stoic,'"  and  whose  personal  temperament  forbids  the  idea 
that  he  was  a  propagandist.'*^  Probably  Jews  had  already 
arrived  at  Ephesus,  their  subsequent  stronghold,  and  had  by 
their  teachings  given  rise  to  discussion.  Heathens  who 
adopted  new  views  named  them  after  their  deceased  towns- 
man, whose  notedly  obscure  writings'"^  may  have  permitted 
different  schools  of  followers. 

Plato  assumes  a  good  and  an  evil  being,*^  thus  approximat- 
ing to  Jewish  views  of  God  and  Satan.  One  of  his  remarks, 
also,  is,  j)ossibly,  borrowed  from  Judaism.^  The  discussion  in 
Ionia  may  have  turned  his  attention  to  the  origin  of  motion. 
His  views  here  do  not  harmonize  readily  with  his  account  of 
creation.''^ 

11.  Plato  attributes  to  the  gods  a  better  character,  in  sev- 
eral respects,  than  was  conceded  to  them  by  many  others.^" 
He  thinks  that  they  must  at  least  equal  good  human  work- 
men, who  always  pay  attention  to  details,  and  that  they  can- 
not be  bought  by  bribes.  In  this  connection,  if  in  any,  we 
might  expect  an  inference  that  they  encourage  human  moral- 
ity. Plato,  however,  neither  draws  such  a  one  nor  alludes  to 
it.  His  infei'ence  is,  that  right-minded  atheists  should  be 
imprisoned  or  put  to  death,  and  something  worse  done  to  the 
others.'*'^ 

"  See  §  III. 

"  See  note  66. 

*''  "  His  style  was  so  o'bscure  and  so  difficult  to  be  xmderstood,  that  the 
Greeks  surnamed  him  the  unintcUigihle." — Am.  Cyclopaedia,  art.  He- 
raclitus. Part  of  the  obscurity  may  have  been  due  to  his  use  of  foreign 
idioms. 

*T  See  note  38. 

48  "There  shall  no  man  see  me  and  "Let  us  not  then  look  at  the  sun 
live."  —  Exod.  33,  20.  ...  as  if  we  could  ever  with  mortal 

eyes  see  and   recocrnize  perfectly   [a 
divine]   mind."  —  Plato,   Laws,   10, 
8,  p.  897  E. 
*^  Compare  note  14. 

^  His  views  will  be  found  in  his  Laws,  10,  10-14,  pp.  899  D  -  907  D, 
Bohn's  trans. 

^1  "To  him  who  may  think  that  gods  do  not  exist  at  all,  there  may 
be  a  naturally  just  habit  (of  mind)  ;  and  such  become  the  haters  of  the 
wicked  ;  .  .  .  they  avoid  the  unjust,  and  love  the  just.  .  .  .  Such  as 
have  become  so  through  folly,  without  a  vicious  frowardness  and  man- 
ners, let  the  judge  apjxiinted  by  law  put  into  the  House  of  Correction, 


576  XENOPIION,   PLATO,   AND   HERACLITUS.      [NOTE   K. 

12.  Plato's  mind  seems  to  have  been  restlessly  active, 
rather  than  quietly  thoughtful.  His  love  of  talking,^-  mani- 
fest in  all  his  writings,  and  tincturing  his  whole  style,  must 
have  precluded  mature  reflection.  For  the  reformation  of 
mankind  his  chief  j)anacea  was  force.^  A  set  of  office-holders, 
whom  he  euphemistically  terms  guardians,**  were  to  manage 
other  people's  business,  so  that  no  one  could  move  right  hand 
or  Jeft  without  their  permission.  He  does  not  say  how  these 
men  were  to  be  selected,  nor  what  should  prevent  self-seekers 
from  obtaining  office.  These  men  should  forbid  religious 
practices  in  private, ^^  and  punish  unbelief.*  They  should  con- 
trol education,^''  as    also   human  occupations   and    habits  of 

for  not  less  thau  five  years.  .  .  .  And  when  the  period  of  their  impris- 
onment expires,  if  any  one  amongst  them  ...  is  again  convicted  on 
such  a  suit,  let  him  pay  the  penalty  of  death.  But  sucli  as,  in  addition 
to  their  believing  that  gods  do  not  exist,  or  that  they  are  careless,  or 
easily  turned  aside,  become  brute-like,  ...  let  the  coui't  of  justice 
determine  that  he  is  to  be  imprisoned  according  to  law,  .  .  .  and  when 
he  dies,  let  him  be  cast  out,  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  country, 
unburied  ;  and  if  any  freemen  shall  together  bury  him,  let  the  party 
luidergo  punishment  for  impiety  [or  rather,  for  unbelief]."  —  Laivs,  10, 
15,  pp.  908  B,  E,  909  A,  B,  C,  Bohn's  trans. 

52  The  article  on  Plato  in  the  Am.  Cyclopaedia  bears  internal  evi- 
dence of  being  penned  by  one  of  his  admirers.  It  attributes  to  him  "the 
richness  of  invention,  the  exuberant  imagery,  the  never-failing  vivacity, 
and  we  may  add  the  garrulity  of  Homer."  — Vol.  13,  p.  384,  col.  1.  The 
last  remark  is  certainly  within  bounds.  Plato  uses  pages  where  lines 
should  suffice. 

53  According  to  the  American  Cyclopaedia  (5,  p.  127,  col.  1), 
Confucius  held  that  "Disobedience  is  the  greatest  of  the  three  thou- 
sand crimes."  If  this  quotation  be  correct,  the  Chinese  philosopher, 
equally  with  Plato,  must  have  relied  for  human  improvement  on  multi- 
tudinous and  minute  directions,  enforced  from  outside,  rather  than  on 
ajjpeal  to  moral  sense.  Com[)are  p.  384,  note  40.  Better  acquaintance 
with  Chinese  history  than  any  yet  attainable  will  be  necessary,  before 
later  and  perhaps  monotheistic  maxims  can  be  distinguished  from  the 
original  ones  of  Confucius. 

«  See  Repuhlic,  2,  15,  in,  91,  pp.  374  E,  375  C,  D,  E,  376  C,  383  C  ; 
Laws,  8,  1,  p)>.  828  B,  829  D. 

^  See  Ch.  II.  note  16. 

56  See  note  51. 

5''  "  In  all  states  it  is  a  thing  unknown  to  all,  that  the  family  of  games 
is  of  the  greatest  power  in  tlie  laying  down  of  laws,  as  to  wliether  what 
are  laid  down  will  remain  or  not.  For  if  it  is  so  ordei'ed,  that  tlie  same 
persons  shall  always  use  the  same  .  .  .  and  be  delighted  with  the  .same 
playthings,  it  permits  the  institutions  laid  down  with  serioiisness  to 
remain  quiet.  But  when  the  sports  are  disturbed,  and  innovations  made 
in  them,  and  they  are  allected  constantly  by  changes,  .  .  .  we  should, 
by  saying  that  no  gieater  bane  could  happen  to  a  state  than  by  such  a 


§n.] 


PLATO.  57' 


life.''^  Could  Plato  have  reappeared  in  Russia  under  Nicholas, 
he  would  have  found  governmental  sanction  for  his  tenet  that  a 
father  must  not  educate  his  children  otherwise  than  as  the  state 
directs.^     Had  he  aimed  at  ingratiating  himself  with  men  in 

thing,  speiik  most  correctly.  .  .  .  Now  a  boy  is,  of  all  wild  beasts,  the 
most  diiii.  lilt  to  manage.  For  by  how  much  the  more  he  has  the  foun- 
tain of  prudence  not  j'et  fitted  up,  he  becomes  crafty  and  keen,  and  the 
most  insolent  of  wild  beasts.  On  this  account  it  is  necessary  to  bind 
him,  a.s  it  were,  with  many  chains.  .  .  .  For  learning  to  read  and  write 
three  years  would  do  for  a  boy  ten  years  old.  But  to  those  who  are 
thirteen,  three  years  for  handling  the  lyre  would  be  a  moderate  time. 
Nor  let  it  he  lawful  for  a  father  (to  permit),  or  his  son  of  his  own  act, 
to  make  his  application  to  these  studies  more  or  less,  or  for  more  or  less 
years  than  these  whether  desirous  to  learn  or  hating  it.  .  .  .  It  is  meet 
.  .  .  that  certain  festival  battles  may  take  place.  .  .  .  Let  not  every 
one  be  a  poet  on  such  subjec^ts,  but  let  him  be  a  person  not  less  than 
fifty  yeais  of  age  ;  Nor.,  in  the  next  place,  si'CH  of  those  as  possess 
POETUY  AXD  Mi'sic  sufficiently  in  themselves,  but  have  never  done  any 
honorable  and  consjucuous  act,  but  [only]  such  as  are  good  men  them- 
selves and  held  in  honor  by  the  state,  and  have  been  the  doers  of  honor- 
able deeds.     (And)  let  the  compositions  of  such  persons  be  sung,  even 

ALTHOUGH  THEY  MAV  NOT  P,E  NATUKALLY  MUSICAL.  But  let  the  decis- 
ion on  these  matters  be  with  the  instructor  of  youth,  and  the  other 
guardians  of  the  laws  ;  .  .  .  nor  let  any  one  dar*  to  sing  a  song,  which 
has  not  been  approved  of  by  the  guardians  of  the  law.s,  who  are  to 
decide,  not  even  if  it  be  sweeter  than  the  hymns  of  Thamyris  and  Or- 
pheus."—Zrnr.y,  7,  7,  14,  8,  1,  Bohn's  trans,  pp.  797  B,"  C,  808  D, 
809  E-810  A,  829  C,  D. 

^  "  He  then,  who  thinks  to  promulgate  laws  for  states,  as  to  what 
manner  citizens  should  live  and  jjcrform  their  {)ublic  and  common  duties, 
but  of  their  private  concerns,  .  .  .  that  there  should  be  a  license  i'or 
each  person  to  live  as  they  please  each  day,  and  no  need  for  everything 
to  take  place  by  an  order,  .  .  .  does  not  think  correctly.  .  .  .  Let  no 
one  utter  any  song  besides  the  public  and  sacred  songs,  .  .  .  any  more 
than  (lie  would  act)  contrary  to  any  other  law  :  and  let  .  .  .  the  guar- 
dians of  the  laws,  and  the  priests  and  priestesses,  chastise  him,  who  does 
not  obey.  .  .  .  Let  us  then  lay  down  this  as  one  of  the  laws.  .  .  .  That 
a  poet  shall  not  compose  anything,  either  beautiful  or  good,  contrary  to 
what  is  lawful  and  just  in  the  state  ;  nor  shall  he  be  permitied  to 
SHOW  what  he  has  COMPOSED  to  any  private  person,  before  it  shall  have 
been  shown  to  the  judges  and  guardians  of  the  law,  appointed  for  this 
purpose,  and  ap])roved  of  by  them.  ...  It  will  be  meet  to  separate  the 
songs  suited  to  females  and  males,  by  defining  them."  —  Laws,  6,  -21, 
7,  s,  <.\  !0 ;  pp.  780  A,  800  A,  801  C,  D,  802  D  ;  Republic,  4,  3,  4,  p.  424 
B,  D,  Bohu's  trans. 

^^  An  individual,  who  had  held  position  near,  and  travelled  witli,  the 
present  Eussian  emperor,  lentnie,  in  the  winter  of  1840-41,  a  work  upon 
education  in  Russia.  It  was  in  Fiench,  and,  if  memory  serve  me  right, 
published  in  Poland.  From  notes  then  taken  the  following  extracts  are 
made:  "No  person  shall  be  permitted  to  have  a  private  teacher,  .  .  . 
v>ithout  such  teacher  shall  first  have  been  examined  ...  by  a  Com- 


578  XENOPIION,   PLATO,   AND    HEKACLITUS.      [NOTE   K. 

authority  his  advocacy  of  governmental  absolutism  would 
have  been  apposite.  Whetlier  it  resulted  from  an  utter 
mistrust  of  man's  moral  nature  may  be  a  (air  question. 
Plato's  views  of  marriage  were,  as  is  well  known,  that  women 
should  be  held  in  common,  and  that  the  parental  relation 
should  be  ignored.""  These  and  other  of  his  utterances  befit 
a  lunatic  or  a  moral  idiot. ®^ 

In  the  discursive  talkativeness  of  Plato  upon  multitudinous 
subjects  there  is  nowhere  indicated  a  mind  competent  to 
oHiGi.VATE,  or  even  to  appreciate  and  retain,  the  conception  of 
a  Creator."'-  Whether  he  could  have  originated  his  limited 
idea  of  Judgment  as   a   supplement   to  his  model   Republic 

mittee  (appointed  by  the  department  of  Public  Instruction)."  The  law- 
was  one  of  Catliarine,  re-enacted.  Nobles  were  expressly  mentioned  in 
the  re-enactment  as  subject  to  its  provisions.  Next,  .  .  .  private  teach- 
ers in  families  or  boarding-schools  were  forbidden  to  teach  anything  but 
the  course  adopted  in  the  public  schools,  or  to  make  use  of  any  other 
books  than  those  pertaining  to  the  same,  in  order  that  public  and  pri- 
vate education  might  harmonize  with  each  other.  The  emperor  even 
forbade  the  opening  of  private  schools  in  localities  where  public  cues 
existed. 

'^  "After  this  enactment,  .  .  .  and  the  others  fonnerly  mentioned, 
the  following,  I  think,  comes  naturally.  .  .  .  That  these  women  be  all 
connnon  to  all  these  men,  and  that  no  one  woman  dwell  with  any  man 
privately,  and  that  their  children  likewise  be  connnon  ;  so  that  neither 
shall  the  parents  know  their  own  children,  nor  the  children  their  parents. 
...  I  do  not  think,  ...  as  to  its  utility  at  least,  that  any  one  would 
doubt  about  it  being  a  very  great  good  to  have  the  women  and  children 
in  connnon,  if  it  were  but  possible ;  but  the  greatest  question,  methink.s, 
will  be,  whether  it  be  possible  or  not."  —  Republic,  5,  7,  Bohn's  trans, 
p.  457  C,  D.     Compare  Laivs,  5,  lo,  p.  739  C. 

^1  "We  must  unclothe  then  the  wives  of  our  guardians,  since  they 
are  to  put  on  virtue  for  clothes  ;  .  .  .  and  the  man  who  laughs  at  naked 
women  .  .  .  seems  not  rightly  to  know  at  what  he  laughs  or  why  he 
does  it."  —  Republic,  5,  (i,  tjohu's  trans,  p.  457  A,  B. 

^^  Plato  in  one  passage  affirms  the  nuholiness  of  any  inquiry  about 
the  greatest  God  and  the  universe,  or  perhaps  it  should  be  translated  the 
greatest  God,  namely,  the  Universe.  "We  say  that  we  ought  not  to 
.search  after  the  greatest  god,  and  the  whole  order  of  the  world,  nor  to 
be  busy  in  explaining  the  causes  (of  things) ;  for  it  is  not  holy.  It  seems 
indeed,  that,  if  the  very  contrary  took  place,  it  would  take  place  cor- 
rectly."—Z««;.9,  7,  2-2,  p.  821  A,  Bohn's  trans.  In  the  face  of  this, 
Plato  in  the  Laws  (10,  (i-0,  pp.  893  B-  899  B)  inc|uires  at  great  length 
concerning  the  Universe.  His  assumptions  and  argument  in  this  portion 
of  his  writings  would,  if  reliable,  dispense  with  a  Creator,  and  prove  the 
nniverse  to  have  a  self-existent  soul  and  its  component  parts  also  to  have 
such  souls.  Cicero  {De  Nat..  Deorum,  1, 12,  al.  30)  uses  strong  language 
concerning  these  and  his  other  inconsistencies  in  regard  to  the  divine 
nature. 


§  II.]  -  PLATO.  579 

might  admit  discussion,  were  it  not  for  the  strong  probability 
that  he  must  have  come  in  contact  with  Jewish  views. 

13.  Phito  is  recognized  by  his  admirers  and  translators  as 
an  obscure  writer.^  There  are  at  least  two  prominent  reasons 
for  this.  Firstly,  his  own  views  are  often  anything  but  clear, 
and  he  cannot  make  his  subject  clearer  to  others  than  to  him- 
self. Secondly,  he  swamps  it  in  such  a  sea  of  conversation 
and  diverts  attention  by  such  incessant  digressions,  that  only 
through  pertinacity  can  a  reader  keep  his  main  object  in 
sight.  There  is  yet  perhaps  a  tiiird  reason.  Plato  at  times 
may  have  been  willing  to  dazzle  weaklings  by  language,  appar- 
ently learned,  which  he  knew  to  be  devoid  of  sense. 

A  reader  conversant  with  French  will  find  Le  Grou's  trans- 
lation easier  reading  and  more  intelligible  than  those  issued 
by  Bohn.  He  should  note  the  sense  in  which  Plato  uses  the 
term  "  music,"  ^  or  he  may  entirely  misapprehend  him. 

''^  The  article  in  the  Newr  Am.  Cyclopaedia  represents  his  style  as 
"often  needlessly  and  provokingly  obscure."  —  Vol.  13,  p.  384,  col.  2. 
H.  Davis,  in  his  Preface  to  the  Tiinaus,  speaks  of  "there  being  many 
j)assages  in  it  which  still  in  fact  puzzle  even  the  most  ingenious  of  its 
commentators."  —  Bohn's  Plato,  Vol.  2,  p.  318.  H.  B.  Burges  men- 
tions the  Statesman  as  presenting  "  not  a  few  passages  to  exercise  and 
.  .  .  baffle  emendatory  criticism  "  ;  and  adds,  "Stallbanm.  .  .  lias  left 
little  to  desire  in  his  Prolegomena  ...  on  questions  that  will,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  remain  forever  in  their  present  obscurity."  —  Bohn's  Plato,  Vol. 
3,  p.  188.  The  same  writer  says  of  the  Painiwnides :  "  By  a  chain  of 
reasoning,  where  subtleties  assume  the  garb  of  truths,  conclusions  are 
arrived  at,  so  as  to  fully  justify  the  fear,  which  Socrates  is  here  feigned 
to  feel,  that  by  pursuing  metaphysical  inquiries,  he  would  fall  into  the 
bottomless  sea  of  trifling.  .  .  .  Such  at  least  seems  to  have  been  the 
fate  of  every  commentator  who  has  ventured  to  enter  the  maze  of  mind 
which  Plato  has  with  such  art  built  up.  For  neither  Proclus  and 
Damascius  of  the  olden  time,  nor  more  recently  Ficinus,  nor,  within  the 
last  hundred  years,  Taylor  in  f^ngland,  Schleierinacher  and  others  in 
Germany,  nor  Cousin  in  France,  have  been  able  to  understand  thoroughly 
themselves,  and  to  e.\]>lain  satisfactorily  to  others,  what  is  likely  to 
remain  forever  an  intellectual  puzzle."  —  Bohn's  Plato,  Vol.  3,  pp.  397, 
398.  The  same  writer  reiterates  his  perplexity  in  his  Preface  to  the 
Philehus,  Bohn's  Plato,  A^ol.  4,  j).  2  ;  and  again  in  his  Preface  to  the 
Laws  speaks  of  the  "original  Greek,  where  .so  numerous  are  the  difficul- 
ties and  so  unaccountable  the  corruptions  as  to  render  it  frequently  im- 
possible to  give  even  a  readable  .  .  .  rendering."  —  Bohn's  Plato,  Vol. 
5,  p.  3. 

64  "When  you  say  mu.sic,  you  mean  arguments,  do  you  not  ?  I  do." 
—  Republic,  2,  IT,  p.  376  E. 


nSO  XENOPHON,   TLATO,   AND    IIERACLITUS.      [NOTE   K. 

§  III.     Heraclitus,  Predecessor  of  the  Stoics. 

At  a  yet  earlier  date  than  Xenophon  and  Plato  lived  Herac- 
litus at  Ephesus  in  Asia  Minor,  a  man  who  in  his  travels 
nnist  have  met  with  Jewish  teaching,  and  whose  recorded 
tenets  entitle  him  to  be  regarded  as  a  predecessor  of  the 
Stoics.*^  The  depression  attributed  to  him  may  have  been 
constitutional,  or  may  have  resulted  from  that  higher  ideal 
of  life  obtained  among- monotheists  which  he  despaired  of  im- 
parting to  his  countrymen.^ 


^^  "  His  philosophical  creed  was  embodied  in  a  Avork  .  .  ,  On 
Nature.  The  most  remarkable  tenets  of  this  creed  were,  that  by  the 
operation  of  a  light  ethereal  tiuid,  which  hk  dekominatkd  fihk,  all 
things  .  .  .  were  created,  and  that  acquiescence  in  tlie  decrees  of  the 
sui'iiEME  LAW  was  the  great  duty  of  man."  —  Am.  Cyclopaedia,  art. 
Heraditiis.  Compare  views  of  Jews  and  Stoics  in  (.'li.  111.  notes  17,  18, 
31,  and  in  the  prefixed  text.  According  to  him,  "  Ultimately  all  things 
will  return  into  the  fire  from  which  they  jnoceeded."  —  Smith,  Did.  of 
Biu(j.  2,  p.  392,  col.  2.  Compare  Ch.  111.  notes  14,  15.  Heraclitus 
"teaches  a  resurrection  of  this  visible  flesh  in  which  we  were  born,  and 
lie  knew  God  as  the  author  of  this  resurrection."  —  Philosophumena, 
9,  10,  pp.  282,  283,  edit.  Miller.  The  closing  lemark  in  regard  to  God 
is  based,  in  the  riiilosophumena,  on  a  ([uotation  from  Heraclitus,  which 
seems  to  mean  that  "[men]  will  be  raised  up  (or  replaced)  by  [the] 
Being,"  and  which  inentions  that  there  will  be  "guards  lor  the  awakened 
and  the  dead."  —  Ibid.  Clement  of  Alexandiia  {Protrej>t.  §  fjO)  appeals 
to  Heraclitus  as  reproaching  idols  and  their  worshijiiieis  foi'  lack  ol'  per- 
ception. Compare  Ps.  115,  G ;  "Wisd.  of  Sol.  15,  1". ;  and  in  the  present 
work  Ch.  III.  notes  9,  10. 

•^•^  "After  Ills  return  to  Ephesus  the  chief  magistracy  was  oflered  him, 
which,  however,  he  transferred  to  his  brother.  He  gave,  as  his  reason 
for  declining  it,  the  infamous  state  of  morals  jirevalent  in  the  city,  and 
employed  himself  in  playing  at  dice  with  boys  near  the  teniple  of  Arte- 
mis, informing  the  passers-by  that  this  was  a  more  profitable  occupation 
than  to  attempt  the  hopeless  task  of  governing  them.  He  ap])ears  alter- 
wards  to  have  become  a  com])lete  recluse,  rejeeting  even  the  kindnesse.s 
oflfered  by  Dareius,  and  at  last  retreating  to  the  mountains,  where  he 
lived  on  pot-heibs,  but,  after  some  time,  lie  was  com])elled  by  the  sick- 
ness conse(pU'nt  on  such  meagre  diet  to  return  to  Ephesus,  where  he 
died.  ...  He  w^as  represented  in  various  old  traditions  as  the  contrast 
to  Democritus,  weeping  over  follies  and  frailties  at  which  the  other 
laughed."  — Smith,  i^id.  of  B ivy.  2,  pp.  391,  392. 


NOTE  L.J  GENESIS  I. -XL  581 


NOTE  L. 

GENESIS  I. -XL 

It  has  been  held  by  many,  both  of  those  who  defend  and 
of  those  who  doubt  or  deny  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  Genesis, 
that  in  its  earUer  chapters  a  compilation  was  made  from  two 
or  more  documents,  one,  or  one  set  of  which,  designated  the 
Deity  as  Elohim,  translated  in  our  common  version  God,  the 
other  as  Jehovah,  or  Jehovah  Elohim,  translated  in  our  com- 
mon version  Lord,  or  Lord  God.  The  following  attempt  at 
arrangement  of  the  documents  in  parallel  columns  was  made 
about  twenty  years  ago.  To  facilitate  comparison  some  por- 
tions of  it  are  now  omitted. 

In  five  instances  (ch.  3,  1-5 ;  4,  part  of  25 ;  5,  part 
of  29 ;  7,  12 ;  9,  27)  the  compiler  seems  to  have  intro- 
duced into  one  narrative  a  peculiarity  borrowed  from  the 
other.  These  have  been  printed  in  brackets  as  a  means  of 
arresting  attention.  Possibly  the  reader  may  improve  details 
of  the  arrangement.  A  table  of  difierences  is  here  subjoined, 
as  an  aid  to  study. 

A.  B. 

In  this  column  :  —  In  this  column :  — 

The  Deity  is  called  God.  The  Deity  is  called  Jehovah  God. 

Creation  lasts  six  days.  Creation  not  apportioned  into  days. 

The  seventh  day  is  hallowed.  The  seventh  day  is  not  mentioned. 

Man  and  woman  are  created  simulta-  Man  first  formed,  then  animals,  and 

neously,  after  fowls  and  animals.  yet  later  woman. 

Eden  is  not  mentioned.  Account  of  Eden. 

The  flood  begins  in  the  year  600,  2d  The  flood  lasts  (40  and  7  and  7)  54 

month,  17th  day;   abates  after  150  days;   it  ends  in  the  year  601,  1st 

days;   ends  in  601,  2d  month,  27th  month,  1st  day. 

day,  having  lasted  1  year  and  10 

days. 

Two  animals  of  all  kinds,  clean  and  Seven  [pair]  of  clean  animals,  two  of 

unclean,  are  saved.  unclean,  and  seven   [pair]  of  fowls 

are  saved. 

The  first-born  is  Seth.  The  first-born  is  Cain. 

Abel  is  not  mentioned.  Abel  is  murdered. 

Lamech  is  a  descendant  of  Seth.  Lamech  is  a  descendant  of  Cain. 

No  sacrifice  is  mentioned.  Noah  offers  sacrifice. 

Babel  not  mentioned.  Account  of  Babel. 


582 


GENESIS   I. -XI. 


[note  L. 


A. 

1.  1  In  the  beginning  God  cre- 
ated the  heaven  and  the  earth. 
2...  3  And  God  said,  Let  there 
be  light  :  and  there  was  light. 
4  And  God  saw  the  light,  that  it 
was  good  :  and  God  divided  the 
light  from  the  darkness.  5  And 
God  called  the  light  Day,  and 
the  darkness  he  called  Night. 
And  the  evening  and  morning 
were  the  first  day. 

6  And  God  said,  Let  there  be 
a  firmament  ...  7  And  God  made 
the  firmament ...  8  And  God 
called  the  firmament  Heaven. 
And  the  evening  and  morning 
were  the  second  day. 

9  And  God  said.  Let  the 
waters  under  the  heaven  be  gath- 
ered together...  10  And  God 
called  the  dry  land  Earth  ;  and 
the  . . .  waters  called  he  Seas  ;  and 
God  saw  that  it  was  good.  11 
And  God  said,  Let  the  earth 
bring  forth  grass,  the  herb  yield- 
ing "seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  ... 
12...  and  God  saw  that  it  was 
good.  13  And  the  evening  and 
morning  were  the  third  day. 

14  And  God  said.  Let  there 
be  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the 
heaven  ...  15  And  let  them  be 
for  lights  in  the  . . .  heaven  ...  16 
And  God  made  two  great  lights  ; 
...he  made  the  stars  also.  17 
And  God  set  them  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heaven  ...  18  ...  and 
God  saw  that  it  ivas  good.  19 
And  the  evening  and  morning 
Avere  the  fourth  day. 

20  And  God  said.  Let  the  wa- 
ters bring  forth  . . .  fowl  that  may 
fly  . . .  21  And  God  created  great 
whales,  and  every  living  creature 
that  moveth, . . .  and  every  winged 
fowl  after  his  kind  :  and  God 
saw  that  it  was  good.  22  And 
God   blessed    them,   saying,   Be 


B. 

(2, 4.)  THESE  ARE  THE  GENERATIONS 

OF   THE 

HEAVENS  AND  OF  THE 
EARTH. 

...  In  the  day  that  Jehovah 
God  made  the  earth  and  the 
heavens.  5  ...  Jehovah  God 
had  not  caused  it  to  rain  upon 
the  earth  ...  6  . . .  7  And  Jeho- 
vah God  formed  man  of  the  dust 
of  the  ground  . . . 

8  And  Jehovah  God  planted 
a  garden  eastward  in  Eden  ;  and 
there  he  put  the  man  ...  9  And 
out  of  the  ground  made  Jeho- 
vah God  to  grow  every  tree  . . . 
the  tree  of  life  also  in  the  midst 
of  the  garden,  and  the  tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil . . . 
10...    11...     12...     13...     14... 

15  And  Jehovah  God  took 
the  man,  and  put  him  into  the 
garden  of  Eden  ...  16  And  Je- 
hovah God  commanded  the  mau 
...  1 7  ...  of  the  tree  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil,  thou  shalt 
not  eat . . . 

18  And  Jehovah  God  said,  Zi 
is  not  good  that  the  man  should 
be  alone  ;  I  will  make  him  an 
helpmeet  for  him.  19  And  out 
of  the  ground  Jehovah  God 
formed  every  beast  of  the  field, 
and  every  fowl  of  the  air  ;  and 
brought  them  unto  Adam  ...  20 
. . .  but  for  Adam  there  was  not 
found  an  helpmeet  for  him.  21 
And  Jehovah  God  caused  a 
deep  sleep  to  fall  u])on  Adam  ... 
and  he  took  one  of  his  ril)s... 
22  And  the  rib,  which  Jehovah 
God  had  taken  from  man,  made 
he  a  woman  ...    23  . . .    24  . . .    25 


3.  1  [Now  the  serpent  was  more  sn1)Ue 
than  any  boast  of  tlie  flelil  which  Jeho- 
vah  God  had  made.    And  he  said  unto 


IsOTE   L.] 


GENESIS  I. -XL 


583 


A. 

fnutful ...  23  And  the  evening 
and  morning  were  the  fifth  day. 
24  And  God  said,  Let  the 
earth  bring  forth  ...  cattle,  and 
creeping  thing,  and  beast  of  the 
earth  ...  25  And  God  made  the 
beast  of  the  earth  . . .  and  cattle 
...  and  everything  that  creejjeth  ; 
. . .  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 
26  And  God  said,  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image,  after  our  like- 
ness ...  27  So  God  created 
man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  im- 
age of  God  created  he  him  ;  male 
and  female  created  he  them.  28 
And  God  blessed  them,  and  God 
said  unto  them.  Be  fruitful  . . . 
29  And  God  said.  Behold,  I  have 
given  you  every  herb. .  .and  every 
...  fruit  of  a  tree  yielding  seed 
to  you  it  shall  be  for  meat.  30 
31  And  God  saw  every- 
thing that  he  had  made,  and,  be- 
hold, it  was  very  good.  And  the 
evening  and  morning  were  the 
sixth  daj^.  2.  1  Thus  the  heav- 
ens and  the  earth  were  finished, 
and  all  the  host  of  them. 

2  And  on  the  seventh  day  God 
ended  his  work  ...  3  And  God 
blessed  the  seventh  day,  and 
sanctified  it :  because  that  in  it 
he  had  rested  from  all  his  work 
which  God  created  and  made. 

(5, 1.)  THIS  IS  THE  BOOK 

OF   THE 

GENERATIONS   OF  ADAM. 

In  the  day  that  God  created 
mart,  in  the  likeness  of  God 
made  he  him  ;  2  Male  and  female 
created  he  them  ;  and  blessed 
them,  and  called  their  name 
Adam  . . . 

3  And  Adam  . . .  begat  a  son  . . . 
and  called  his  name  Seth.  4  ... 
5... 


B. 

the  woman,  Yea.  hath  God  said,  Te  shall 
not  eat  of  every  tree  of  the  garden?  2 
And  the  woman  said  unto  the  serpent... 
3  ...  of  the  fruit  of  tlie  tree  whieli  is  in 
the  midst  of  tlie  garden,  God  hatli  said. 
Ye  shall  not  eat  of  it  ...lest  ye  die.  4 
And  the  serpent  said  unto  the  woman. 
Ye  shall  not  surely  die  :  5  For  God  doth 
know  that  in  the  day  ye  eat ...  then  your 
eyes  shall  he  opened,  and  ye  shall  be  as 
gods,  knowing  good  and  evil.] 

6  And  when  the  woman  saw 
that  the  tree  was  good  for  food 
...  she  took  ...  and  gave  also 
unto  her  husband  with  her  ;  and 
he  did  eat.  7  ...  8  And  they 
heard  the  voice  of  Jehovah  God 
walking  in  the  garden  ;  ...  and 
Adam  and  his  wife  hid  them- 
selves from  . .   Jehovah   God  . . . 

9  And  Jehovah  God  called 
unto  Adam, . . .  Where  art  thou  ? 

10  ...  11  ...  Hast  thou  eaten  of 
the  tree,  whereof  I  commanded 
thee  that  thou  shotildst  not  eat  ? 
12  And  the  man  said.  The 
woman  whom  thou  gavest  to  he 
with  me,  she  gave  me  of  the  tree, 
and  I  did  eat.  13  And  Jehovah 
God  said  unto  the  woman,  What 
is  this  that  thou  hast  done  1  And 
the  woman  said.  The  serpent  be- 
guiled me,  and  I  did  eat.  14 
And  Jehovah  God  said  unto  the 
serpent.  Because  thou  hast  done 
this,  thou  art  cursed...  15... 
16...  17...  18...  19...  20 
...  21  Unto  Adam  also  and  to 
his  wife  did  Jehovah  God 
make  coats  of  skins,  and  clothed 
them. 

22  And  Jehovah  God  said, 
Behold,  the  man  is  become  as 
one  of  us...  and  now,  lest  he 
...take  also  of  the  tree  of  life, 
and  eat,  and  live  forever  :  23 
Therefore  Jehovah  God  sent 
him  forth  from  the  garden  of 
Eden...     24... 

4.  1  And  Adam  knew  Eve 
his  wife  ;  and  she  conceived,  and 


584 


GENESIS   I. -XI. 


[note  L. 


A. 

6  And  Seth  ...  begat  Enos  :  7 
...     8... 

9  And  Enos  ...  begat  Cainan: 
10...     11... 

12  And  Cainan  . . .  begat  Maha- 
laleel:     13...     14... 

15  And  Mahalaleel... begat  Ja- 
red:     16...     17... 

18  And  Jared  ...  begat  Enocli  : 
19...     20... 

21  And  Enoch  ...  begat  Me- 
thuselah :  22  . . .  Enoch  walked 
with  God  ...  23  And  all  the 
days  of  Enoch  were  365  years  : 
24  And  Enoch  walked  with 
God  :  and  he  ivas  not ;  for  God 
took  him. 

25  And  Methuselah  . . .  begat 
Laniech  :  26...  27  ... 

28  And  Lamech  ...  begat  a 
son  :  29  And  he  called  his  name 
Noah, 

[Saying,  This  same  shalV  comfort  "us  con- 
cerning our  work  and  toil  of  our  liands. 
because  of  the  ground  which  Jehovah 
hath  cursed.] 

32  And  Noah  . . .  begat  Shem, 
Ham,  and  Japheth. 

6.  1  And  ...  2  ...  the  sons  of 
God  saw  the  daughters  of  men 
that  they  were  fair ;  and  they 
took  them  wives  of  all  which 
they  chose. 


(6,  9.) 


the.se 

ARE   THE 


GENERATIONS  OF   NOAH. 

Noah  was  a  just  man  and  ... 
walked  with  God.  10  . . .  11  The 
earth  also  was  corrupt  before 
God  ...  12  And  God  looked 
upon  the  earth,  and,  behold,  it 
was  corru))t  ...  13  And  God 
said  unto  Noah,  The  end  of  all 
flesh  is  come  ; . . .  I  will  destroy 
them  with  the  earth. 


B. 

bare  Cain,  and  said,  I  have  got- 
ten a  man  from  Jehovah.  2 
And  she  again  bare  his  brother 
Abel ...  3  And  in  process  of 
time  it  came  to  pass,  that  Cain 
brought ...  an  offering  unto  Je- 
hovah. 4  And  Aliel,  he  also 
brought . . .  And  Jehovah  had 
respect  unto  Abel  and  to  his  of- 
fering :  5  . . .  6  And  Jehovah 
said  unto  Cain,  Why  art  thou 
wroth  ? . . .  7  ...  8  ...  Cain  rose 
up  against  Abel  his  brother,  and 
slew  him. 

9  And  Jehovah  said  unto 
Cain,  Where  is  xA.bt:l  thv  brother  ? 
...  10...  11  ...  12  ..';  13  And 
Cain  said  unto  Jehovah,  My 
punishment  is  greater  than  I  can 
bear.  14...  15  And  Jehovah 
said  unto  him.  Therefore,  who- 
soever slayeth  Cain,  vengeance 
shall  be  taken  on  him  seven-fold. 
And  Jehovah  set  a  mark  upon 
Cain,  lest  any  finding  him  should 
kill  him.  16  And  Cain  went 
out  from  the  presence  of  Jeho- 
vah ... 

17  And  Cain  knew  his  wife  ; 
and  she  conceived,  and  bare 
Enoch...  18  And  unto  Enoch 
was  born  Irad  :  and  Irad  l^egat 
Mehujael  :  and  Mehujael  begat 
Methusael  :  and  Methusael  be- 
gat Lamech. 

19...    20...     21  ...    22...    23 

...     24  . . .    25  And  Adam  knew 

his  wife  again  ;  and  she  bare  a 

son,  and  called  his  name  Seth  : 

[For  God,  said  she,  liath  apjiointed  ine 
another  seed  instead  of  Abel,  whom  Gala 
slew.] 

26  And  to  Seth,  there  was 
born  a  son,  Enos  :  then  began 
men  to  call  upon  the  name  of 
Jehovah. 

6.  3  And  Jehovah  said,  My 
spirit  shall  not  always  abide  in 
man  ...     4  . . . 


NOTE   L.] 


GENESIS   I. -XI. 


585 


A. 

14  Make  thee  an  ark  of  gopher 
wood...  15...     16...    17...     18 

19  And  of  every  living 
thing  of  all  flesh,  two  of  every 
sort  shalt  thou  bring  into  the  ark, 
to  keep  them  alive  with  thee  ; 
they  shall  be  male  and  female. 
20  . . .  21  . . .  22  Thus  did  Noah  ; 
according  to  all  that  God  com- 
manded him  ...     7.    6  ... 

7  And  Noah  went  in,  and  his 
sons,  and  his  wife,  and  his  sons' 
wives  with  him  ...  8  Of  clean 
beasts,  and  of  beasts  that  are  not 
clean,  and  of  fowls,  and  of  every 
thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth,  9  There  went  in  two  and 
two  unto  Noah  into  the  ark,  the 
male  and  the  female,  as  God  had 
commanded  Noah. 

11  In  the  six  hundredth  year 

of    Noah's   life,    in  the    second 

month,  the   seventeenth   day  of 

the  month,  the  same  day  were 

all  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep 

broken  up,  and  the  windows  of 

heaven  were  opened. 

12  [And  the  rain  was  upon  the  earth 
forty  clays  and  forty  nights.] 

13  In  the  selfsame  day  en- 
tered Noah...  14...  15  And 
they  went  in  . . .  two  and  two  of  all 
flesh ...  16  . . .  male  and  female  of 
all  flesh,  as  God  had  commanded 
him:  18...  19...  20...  21  ... 
22  ...  23  ...  24  And  the  waters 
prevailed  upon  the  earth  150  days. 

8.  1  And  God  remembered 
Noah  ...  2  . . .  3  . . .  and  after . . . 
150  days  the  waters  were  abated. 
4  . . .  5  And  the  waters  decreased 
continually...  14  And  in  the 
second  month,  on  the  27th  day, 
...  was  the  earth  dried. 

15  And  God  spake  unto  Noah, 
saying,  16  Go  forth  of  the  ark  ... 
17...  18  And  Noah  went  forth 
...    19... 

25* 


B. 

5  And  Jehovah  saw  that  the 
wickedness  of  man  was  great . . . 
6  And  it  repented  Jehovah  that 
he  had  made  man  ...  7  And 
Jehovah  said,  I  will  destroy 
man  whom  I  have  created...  8 
But  Noah  found  grace  in  the 
eyes  of  Jehovah. 

7.  1  And  Jehovah  said  unto 
Noah,  Come  thou  and  all  thy 
house  into  the  ark  ...  2  Of 
every  clean  beast  thou  shalt  take 
to  thee  by  sevens,  the  male  and 
his  female  ;  and  of  beasts  that 
are  not  clean  by  two,  the  male 
and  his  female.  3  Of  fowls  also 
of  the  air  by  sevens,  the  male  and 
the  female  ...  4  ...  and  I  will 
cause  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth 
forty  days  and  forty  nights  ...  5 
And  Noah  did  according  unto  all 
that  Jehovah  commanded  him. 
10...  16  And  Jehovah  shut 
him  in.  17  And  the  flood  was 
forty  days  upon  the  earth  . . . 

8.  6  And  it  came  to  pass  at 
the  end  of  forty  days,  that  Noah 
...  1  ...  8  . . .  sent  forth  a  dove 
...  9  ...  and  she  returned  unto 
him  ...  10  And  he  stayed  yet 
other  seven  days  ;  and  again  he 
sent  forth  the  dove  ...  11  And  the 
dove  came  in  to  him  in  the  even- 
ing ;  and,  lo,  in  her  mouth  was 
an  oHve  leaf  plucked  oft' ;  so 
Noah  knew  that  the  waters  were 
abated  ...  12  And  he  stayed  yet 
other  seven  days  ;  and  sent  forth 
the  dove  ;  which  returned  not 
again  ...  13  And  it  came  to  pass 
in  the  601st  year,  in  the  first 
month,  the  first  day  of  the  month, 
the  waters  were  dried  up  . . . 

20  And  Noah  builded  an 
altar  unto  Jehovah;  and  took 
of  every  clean  beast,  and  of  every 
clean  fowl,  and  offered  burnt  of- 
ferings on  the  altar.    21  And  Je- 


586 


GENESIS   I. -XI. 


[note  L. 


A. 

9.  1  And  God  Islessed  Noah 
and  his  sons,  and  said  unto  them, 
Be  fruitful, ...  2...  3...  4... 
5  ...  6  Whoso  sheddeth  man's 
blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be 
shed :  for  in  the  image  of  God 
made  he  man.     1  ... 

8  And  God  spake  unto  Noah 
...  9  . . .  behold,  I  establish  my 
covenant  with  you  ...  10  . . .  II 
...     12...     13...      14...      15... 

16  ...  the  bow  .shall  be  in  the 
cloud  ; . . .  that  I  may  remember 
the  everlasting  covenant  between 
God  and  every  living  creature  ... 

17  And  God  said  unto  Noah, 
This  is  the  token  of  the  cov- 
enant . . . 

18  And  the  sons  of  Noah,  that 
went  forth  of  the  ark,  were  Shem, 
and  Ham,  and  Japheth  ...  19  ... 
28...     29... 


(11,  10.) 


TUESE 


ARE   THE 

GENERATIONS   OF   SHEM. 

Shem  . . .  begat  Arphaxad  :  . . . 
11...  1 2  And  Arphaxad  : . . .  be- 
gat Salah  :  13...  14  And  Sa- 
lah  . . .  begat  Eber :  15...  16  And 
Eber  ...  begat  Peleg  :  17  ...  18 
And  Peleg  ...  begat  Reu  :  19... 
20  And  Reu  ...  begat  Serug  :  21 
...  22  And  Serug  . . .  begat  Na- 
hor :  23  . . .  24  And  Nahor  ...  be- 
gat Terah :  25  . . .  26  And  Terah 
...  begat  Abram,  Nahor,  and 
Haran. 

NOW  THESE 


GENERATIONS  OF  TERAH. 

27  Terah  begat  Abram  ...  28 
...  29  ...  30...  31  And  Terah 
took  Abram  . . .  and  they  came  un- 
to Haran,  and  dwelt  there.  32  . . . 


B. 
hovah    smelt    a    sweet   savor  ; 
and  Jehovah  said  in  his  heart, 

1  will  not  again  curse  the  ground 
any  more  for  man's  sake  ...   22  . . . 

9.  20...  21  ...  22...  23... 
24  Noah  ...  25...  26  ...  said. 
Blessed  be  Jehovah  God  of 
Shem  . . . 

27  [God  shall  enlarge  Japheth,  and  he 
shall  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem ;  and 
Canaan  shall  be  his  servant.] 

(10,   1.)  NOW  THESE 

ARE    THE 

GENERATIONS    OF    THE    SONS 
OF   NOAH. 

Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth  ... 

2  The  sons  of  Japheth  ...     3  ... 
4...     5... 

6  And  the  sons  of  Ham  :  Cush 
7  ...  8  And  Cush  begat 
Nimrod  ...  9  He  was  a  mighty 
hunter  before  Jehovah,  where- 
fore it  is  said,  Even  as  Nimrod 
the  mighty  hunter  before  Jeho- 
vah. 10...  11...  12...  13... 
14...  15  ...  16...  17...  18... 
19...     20... 

21  Unto  Shem  ...vi-ere children 
born.  22...  23...  24...  25 
...  26  ...  27  ...  28...  29... 
30...    31  ... 

32  These  are  the  families  of 
the  sons  of  Noah  ... 

11.  1  And  the  whole  earth 
...  2  ...  3...  4  ...  said,  Go  to, 
let  us  build  us  a  city  and  a  tower 
...  5  And  Jehovah  came  down 
to  see  the  city  and  the  tower  ... 
6  And  Jehovah  said  ...  7  ... 
let  us  go  down,  and  there  con- 
found their  language...  8  So 
Jehovah  scattered  them  ...  9 
Therefore  is  the  name  of  it  called 
Babel  ;  because  Jehovah  did 
there  confound  the  language  of 
all  the  earth  ;  and  from  thence  did 
Jehovah  scatter  them  abroad  . . . 


NOTE  M.]     LOCALITY  OF  GREEK  CULTUEE.         687 

NOTE  M. 

LOCALITY  OF  GREEK  CULTURE. 

Smith's  Biographical  Dictionary  furnishes  the  following 
professional  names,  between  B.  c.  400  and  A.  D.  400,  of  per- 
sons who  lived  not  farther  west  than  Greece  or  Egypt.^  The 
investigation  (intrusted  to  other  eyes  and  which  the  author 
could  not  test)  may  be,  and  is  doubtless,  imperfect ;  yet  its 
results  are  subjoined  in  the  hope  of  lightening  labor  for  some 
one  else. 

Persons  of  uncertain  origin  are  designated  by  a  mark  of  in- 
terrogation ;  natives  of  Greece  proper  by  italics.  Such  of  the 
latter  as  studied  or  resided  in  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  or  Egypt 
have  an  asterislc  affixed  to  their  names. 

Asia  Minor  was  a  larger  country  than  Syria  or  North  Egypt. 
Its  secular  literature  also  has  perished  to  a  less  extent  than 
that  of  the  other  two.^  Both  of  these  causes  may  explain 
•why  we  still  have  a  larger  list  from  it  than  from  both  the 
others  of  literary  and  scientific  men.  Whether  its  medical 
prominence  claim  other  explanation  may  deserve  scrutiny. 
Of  the  pliysicians  hereinafter  named  ninety-eight  are  of  uncer- 
tain origin  ;  seventy-four  came  from  Asia  Minor ;  and  but  fif- 
teen from  Syria  and  North  Egypt.  To  Syrians,  however,  should 
be  added  Luke,  not  mentioned  in  Smith. 

Astronomers.  —  Apollonius  of  Phrvgia,  Apollonius  of  Caria, 
Aristarchus,  Aristyllus  (?),  Callippus,  Cleomedes  {'.),  Conon,  Era- 
tostlienes,  Eiuloxus,  Gemiims,  Hipparchus,  Hypsicles,  Ptolemaius, 
Sosigenes  (I),  Theodosius,  Theon. 

Mathematicians.  —  Apollonius,  Archimedes,  Ctesibius  (mech- 


1  Greek  culture  existed  in  North  Africa,  Sicily,  South  Italy,  and  in 
that  section  of  Gaul  where  we  afterwards  find  a  settlement  of  Christians, 
some  of  them  certainly  from  Asia.  In  most  cases,  however,  we  could  only 
reason  inferentially  as  to  whether  this  culture  came  from  Greece  or  from 
more  monotheistic  lands. 

2  Asia  Minor  was  ruled  more  immediately  by  the  Senate ;  Syria  and 
North  Egypt,  by  the  emperor  (see  p.  184,  note  115).  The  latter  two 
countries  were  more  frequently  than  the  former  intrusted  to  members  of 
the  popular  party,  a  party  wdiose  literature  suffered  seriously  during  the 
ascendency  of  its  opponents.  Much  of  Syrian  literature  was  moreover  in 
a  language  unlikely  to  be  copied  or  read  outside  of  its  own  borders. 


588  LOCALITY   OF   GREEK   CULTURE.  [NOTE  M. 

anician),  Diophantus  (?),  Dositheus,  Eucleides  (Euclid),  Heron  (mech- 
anician), Maiinus,  Menelaus,  Onosander  (l),  Pappus,  Philon  (mech- 
anician), Polyainus,  Strabo  (geographer),  Theodosius,  Theon. 

Architects.  —  Andronicus,  Chersiphron,  Deinocrates,  Deme- 
trius (.'),  jMeuulippus  (l),  Nicon,  Parmenion  ( ?),  Fhileus,  Philon,  Pris- 
cus,  Sostratus,  Trvi)hon. 

Grammarians  and  Rhetoricians.  —  Abron,  Agatharchides, 
Alexander  Pelop.,  Amerias,  Ammonius,  Amj)hicrates*  Androma- 
chus  (?),  Aphthonius,  Apollodorus  (two),  Apollodorus*  Apollonius, 
Apollonius*  Apollonius  Dysc,  Apollonius  Molon.,  Arcadius,  Aris- 
tarchus,  Aristeides  P.  ^lius,  Aristocles  (two),  Aristodemus,  Aris- 
tonicus,  Arf.em,07i,  Asclepiades  (three),  Athenseus  (?),  Atticus  Dion., 
Atticus*  Basilicus,  Baton,  Bemarchius,  Caianus,  Callias,  Callima- 
chus,  Callinicus,  Callistratus  (?),  Carystius,  Castor,  Caucalus,  Cestius 
Pius,  Chasrenion,  Chrestus,  Conon  (/),  Crates,  Daniianus,  Daphitas, 
Demetrius  (three),  Dexippus,  Dexippus  P.  Heron.  (/),  Dias,  Didymus 
(two),  Didymus  (the  younger),  Diodorus,  Diodorus  Zonas,  Diodorus 
(the  younger),  Diogenes,  Diogenianus  (two),  Dionysius  (eight),  Dio- 
phanes,  Diotimus,  Diotrephes,  Diphihis,  Dorion  (/),  Ej)a})hroditus* 
Epiceleustus,  Epicurus,  Epiphanius,  Epitherses,  Eudemus  (I),  Eu- 
dajmon,  Eulogius  Favon.,  Eunapius,  Euphorioii*  Euphorion,  Eu- 
phronidcs^  Eivpithius,  Eurycles  (0,  Evodianus,  Fronto,  Genethlius, 
Glaucon,  Gnipho,  M.  Antonin.,  Heliodorus,  Helladius,  Helladius 
Besant.,  Hellanicus,  Heracleides  (two),  Heracleon,  Hermagoras  (two), 
Hermarchus,  Hermippus,  Hermocrates,  Hermogenes,  Hermon  (?), 
Herodianus  ^lius,  Hesychius,  Hierocles,  Himerius,  Homerus, 
Homerus  Sellius  (?),  Horapollo,  Horus  {]),  Isidorus,  Leonidas,  Les- 
bonax  (two),  Libanius,  Lollianus,  Longus,  Lupercus,  Lycophron, 
Lynceus,  Lysiniachus,  Maior,  Melampodes  (?),  Menander,  Menecles, 
Minucianus,  Minuciamis,  Moeris  (?),  Neoptolemus,  Nicander,  Ni- 
cias,  Nicomedes,  Nicostratus,  Obrimus  (?),  Orion,  Palsephatus,  Pala- 
medes  (?),  Palladius,  Pummenes,  Paniphilus,  Pantetius,  Parmenis- 
cus  (0,  Parthenius,  Pasicrates,  Paulus  (two),  Phanias,  Philemon 
(two[?),  Philetas,  Philiscus,  Philostratus(?),  Philostratus,  Philoxenus, 
Platonius(/),  Plution  (l),  Polemon  Antonin.,  Pollio  Asin.  (of  Tralles), 
Pollux,  Polycrates  (?),  Pompilius  (of  Syria),  Potamon,  Praxiphanes, 
Proaeresius,  Probus  (of  Berytus),  Proclus,  Proclus  Eutuch.,  Ptole- 
mseus  (four),  Ptolemaeus  Pindar.,  Rhianus,  Rutinus  (of  Antioch), 
Sabinus,  Scopelianus,  Secundns,  Seleucus,  Serapion,  Simaristus  (?), 
Sosihius,  Sostratus,  Tauriscus  (?),  Telephus  (two),  Theagenes,  The- 
mistius,  Theodectes,  Theodorus  (two),  Theodosius,  Theodotui^,  Theon 
yElins,  Til)erius  (?),  Timarchus  (two  [?),  Tryphiodorus,  Tryphon, 
Tyraniiion  (two),  Victorinus  INIarius,  Xenarchus,  Xenocles,  Zeno- 
bius  (?),  Zenodotus  (two),  Zcnon,  Zoilus. 

Physicians  and  Surgeons,  (compare  Chap.  XIII.  note  11). — 
Ablabius  {>.),  Adamantius  (Jew),  iElianus  (?),  iElius,  iEschines, 
^schrion,  Agatkemerus,  Agath'mus*  Alexander  Phil.,  Alexander, 
Alexias,  Ammonius  Lithot.,  Anaxilaus,  Andreas*  Androcydes  (?), 
Andron  (?),  Andronicus  (?),  Antigouus  {]),  Antiochus  (two  \_l)  An- 


NOTE  M.]     LOCALITY  OF  GREEK  CULTUEE.  589 

tiphanes  (?),  Antonius  (?),  Antyllus  (?),  Apollonides  (?),  Apollonius 
Antioch.,  Apollonius  Arch.,  Apollonius  Biblas,  Apollonius  Citien., 
Apollonius  Claud.,  Apollonius  Cyprius,  Apollonius  Enipir.,  Apol- 
lonius Heroph.,  Apollonius  Memph.,  Apollonius  Mus.,  Apollonius 
Opliis,  Apollonius  Pergam.,  Apollonius  Pitan.  (?),  Apollonius  Tar- 
sen.,  Apollopbanes,  Apsyrtus,  Aratus,  Archagathus,  Archibius  (?), 
Arcbigenes  (1),  Aretaeus  (l),  Aristarcbus  (?),  Aristion  (?),  Aristogenes 
(two),  Aitemidorus  (?),  Artemidorus  Corn.,  Asclapo,  Asclepiades, 
Atbenoeus,  Bacclieius*  Botrj^s  (?),  Coesarius,  Callianax  (]),  Calli- 
cles  (?),  Calligenes  (?),  Callimacbus  (?),  Callimorphus  (?),  Capito  (?), 
Cassius  (?),  Celsus  A.  Cornel.^  (?),  Cbariton  (?),  Charixenus  (]),  Cbrys- 
ermus  (?),  Gbrysippus  (tbree  [?),  Cleopbantus  (two  [?),  Codratus  (a 
Cbristian  martyr),  Critobulus  (?),  Critodenius,  Ctesias,  Demetrius 
(three),  Demosthenes  Phil.  (?),  Dexippus,  Diagoras  (?),  Dieuches  (?), 
Diodes,  Diodorus  (;),  Diodotus  (?),  Diogenes  (?),  Diomedes,  Diony- 
sius,  Diophantes,  Dioscorides  Podac,  Dioscorides  Pbacas,  Dipbilus, 
DorotJieus,  Epiotetus  (?),  Erasistratus  (?),  Eudoxus,  Eugenianus  (?), 
Eunomos  (?),  Euphorbus  (?),  Euphorion  (?),  Eustatbius  (?),  Eusto- 
chius  (/),  Evax,  Evenor  (?),  Galenus,  Glaucias  (?),  Glaucus  (/),  Gorgias 
(two  [!),  Hegetor  (?),  Heracleides  (two  [?),  Heraclianus  (?),  Heras  (?), 
Hermogenes  (two  [?),  Herodotus  (two  [?),  Herophilus,  Hieesius  ('?), 
Hippocrates  ( ?),*  Iphicianus  (?),  lonicus  (?),  Julianus,  Leonidas,  Leon- 
tius,  Lucius,  Lycus  of  ]\Iacedonia,  Lysimachus,  Magnus  (four), 
Marinus,  Medius,  Meges,  Menemachus  (l),  Menodorus  (1),  Menodo- 
tus,  Metrodorus  (two),  Mnaseas  (?),  Mnemon  (?),  Niceratus  (?),  Ni- 
cias,  Nicomacbus  (?),  Kileus  (?),  Nymphodorus  (?),  Olymnius  (?), 
Olympus  (?),  Orestes  (?),  Oribasius,  Palladius  (?),  Pantaleon,  Papy- 
lus,  Pasicrates,  Pausanias  (?),  Pelops,  Philagrius*  Pbilagrius  ('/), 
Philinus  (?),  Phili^jpus,*  Philippus  (two  [?),  Pliilon,  Philon  (?), 
Philonides,  Pliilotas*  Philoxenus  (^),  Philumenus  {>),  Polyarcbus  (?), 
Polyeides  (0,  Praxagoras,  Priscianus  Theo.  (?),  Eufus  Ephesius,  Sa- 
binus  (?),  Satyrus  (?),  Serapion,  Sextus  Empiricus  (?),  Sopolis  (?), 
Soranus  (four),  Sostratus  {V),  Straton,  Stratonicus,  Tbalelreus, 
Themison,  Tbeodorus  (^),  Theodotus  (three),  Thessalus,  Theudas  (?), 
Xenocrates  (?),  Xenopbon  (two),  Zenobius,  Zenon  (three),  Zeuxis, 
Zopyrus. 

A  collection  of  fragments  from  Greek  historians  has  been 
published  by  Didot  at  Paris,  in  fonr  large  8vo  volumes.  Of 
the  writers  contained  therein  only  one  tenth,  or  thereabouts, 
came  from  Greece. 

No  city  of  Greece  proper  seems  to  have  had  any  public 
library.  This  is  a  strong  reason  for  discrediting  that  country 
as  the  seat  of  Greek  learning. 

*  Celsus  spent  a  portion  of  his  life  at  Rome. 

*  Arabian  accounts  say  that  Hippocrates  studied  near  Damascus. 


ADDENDA. 

Page  18,  note  3.  —  Emesti,  in  his  Index  to  Cicero's  Latin,  states 
un(kn'  Divinus,  that  the  Ancients  classitied  dialectics  and  morals  as 
hunuin  concerns  ;  the  events  of  nature  as  divine  ones. 

The  gods  —  though  deemed  inditi'erent  to  morality  and  sensitive 
almost  exclusively  to  offences  against  themselves  —  were  thought 
occasionally  to  notice  what  contravened  sentiment.  Thus  when  the 
father  of  CEdipus  exposed  his  infant  son,  the  gods  cared  nothing  for 
his  crime  ;  but  when  the  son,  escaping  destruction,  married  in  ma- 
ture life  through  ignorance  his  own  mother,  they  sent  pestilence  on 
his  ]"ieople. 

Page  203,  line  9  of  note.  —  The  point  of  the  allusion  to  Plato  is 
that  his  favoritism  for  the  ruling  class  (see  pp.  576,  577)  rendered 
it  difficult  for  patricians  to  gainsay  his  authority. 

Page  361,  note  6.  —  Persecutions  under  Marc  Antonine  must 
have  been  largely  due  to  the  political  clique  who  controlled  him, 
and  who  wished  that  the  result  of  their  own  robbery  and  misrule 
should  be  attributed  to  anger  of  the  gods  against  Christians. 

Page  384,  note  40.  — Two  of  our  Missionaries  to  Japan,  M.  C. 
Harris  and  C.  S.  Eby,  inform  me  that  the  Japanese  language  also 
has  no  word  for  conscience.  The  latter  writes  me  :  "  We  have  to 
say  '  conscience '  by  a  circumlocution,  and  often  the  English  word 
itself  is  incorporated  into  speech  or  literature  for  the  educated." 

"The  suliject  of  conscience  is  entirely  new  to  them  [inhabitants 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands],  and  deeply  interesting.  They  have  no 
word  for  it  in  their  language,  Init  they  readily  perceive  that  there 
is  such  a  faculty."  Letter  of  Richard  Armstrong  to  Dr.  Wayland, 
in  Memoir  of  Francis  Wayland,  Vol.  1,  p.  ;3S6. 

Page  390,  note  3.  —  "  The  Zulus  .  .  .  worship  their  ancestors. 
.  .  .  There  is  no  word  in  the  Zulu  language  which  is  equivalent  to 
the  word  God."  Josiall  Tyler  in  "New  York  Ob.server,"  quoted 
in  "  New  York  Trilnuie,"  Dec.  U,  1881. 

Page  564.  —  The  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  in  its  article  on  Gibbon 
(Vol.  11,  p.  il-I,  col.  2)  says  :  "  His  aripuiintance  with  the  Byzan- 
tine historians  is  said  by  those  Avho  have  studied  the  subject  to  be 
superficial."  The  same  charge  applies  to  his  acquaintance  with 
western  writers.  His  treatment  of  slavery  in  his  second  chapter 
utterly  ignores  the  conflict  of  parties  wliich  has  been  stated  on 
]ip.  8f;-89,  and  he  ol)viously  regards  the  ameliorated  slave  law  of 
Hadrian  as  due  to  kindlier  feeling  of  slaves  towards  their  masters, 
whereas  it  was  occasioned  by  public  indignation  at  recent  atrocities 
of  the  latter. 


''■^:!:i.' 


